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Best. Blog. Comment. Evah.
John Cole, ruminating about the potential disaster awaiting the GOP this November found this gem in his comment section:
The GOP let Alfred E. Neumann sit behind the wheel of their bus and drive it off a cliff. The fuckin’ thing is falling, Alfred’s grinning mug is turned to them asking “Hows that fellas?” and somewhere from the back of the bus a genius removes his tongue from the window and mumbles “Pssst, I think we have a message problem.”Now if we can just get Danziger or Oliphant to draw the cartoon.
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Comments (10)
Great imagery. Springsteen has a line about W where he's the groundskeeper:
I wish I was a writer. Then I'd write a one-man play featuring George H.W. Bush. He was by all accounts a decent man, and would have been remembered fondly (PBS special on him last night, actually...).
EXCEPT for his son George W. Bush. W. really ruined his legacy (and the country, of course). Anyway, I could imagine a very moving portrayal of H.W. dealing with the littany of havoc that his son wrought. He would be in direct dialogue with W's:
-- Torture
-- No Habeus Corpus
-- War Profiteering
-- Wiretapping
-- Voter Suppression
-- New Orleans
-- Systematic Attacks on the Constitution (Signing statements, hidden tricks in the Patriot Act)
-- Tax Cuts to only the Top 1%
-- Cronyism
H.W. would have to cry uncontrollably for the last 15 minutes of the play after taking into account the devastation of his callow son.
Here's a clip. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lkPXVnZAis -- I truly like H.W. An honorable and decent person. But the sub-text here is that he couldn't get the words "with decency and honesty [or integrity]" out. He's crying for the hell that George W. Bush inflicted on HW's beloved country. Not that Jeb lost. He's crying over W's inability to handle defeat and challenges with any decency or honor. W brought intense shame to the Bush clan and to America.
This play is one I would watch. (David Mamet can't write it though since he wrote that incredibly stupid screed against the left a few weeks ago...) [http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0811,why-i-am-no-longer-a-brain-dead-liberal,374064,1.html]
May 7, 2008 1:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
George WH Bush was a decent man? Ever hear of Nicarguara? The links to the brutal, oppressive regime in Saudi Arabi? I'm sure the list goes on.
While the actions of the son may out shine those of the father, it is a matter of perspective and degree.
May 7, 2008 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
mischief: Relax on trying to nail me on minutia. All Presidents have some similar Nicarguara-type bs attributed to them. Clinton had Waco and Elian and, oh yeah, Monica... Barack will also have his black-eye-incidents after he's done serving out his 8 years.
My point is clearly that HW is a far, far cry from his son and the Constituion-burning neo-cons. I'm no Republican fan, but there are two camps: 1) evil, movement-conservatives, and 2) the simply proud American, conservative functionary types like HW, Brent Scowcroft, John Dean.....
These people had some sort of moral center, and no doubt they realize their party is destroyed after W.
PS - HW's wife, on the other hand, can go to hell. She's a Cheney-like neo-con in her black, rotted heart:
1) Barbara Bush on Iraq-dead: "Why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it’s gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Oh, I mean, it’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?" (March 2003)
2) Bab's on Katrina Refugees in Houston: "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this [she chuckles slightly] is working very well for them."
May 7, 2008 6:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's hardly minutiae. Remember Iran/Contra?
Jesus. No one who ever ran the CIA is a "decent person" and no one in that family is decent, AFAIC.
The brothers are all crooks, straight up. The mother is a nightmare who thinks she's the bloody queen of England and I will never ever ever forgive her for what she said to the refugees from New Orleans once they were so pleasantly housed in the Astro Dome in Houston - that they'd "never had it so good."
I'll just sum up - there is nothing decent about those people.
May 7, 2008 10:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
HW was "relatively" decent compared to what we've seen over 8 years and even compared to Reagan. The "minutia", though still horrible, doesn't stack up to the atrocities that we've witnessed since 2000 (ie - Torture, Signing Statements, Energy Policy, etc...).
Not trying to defend the Bushes. But he kinda signifies for me the last of the non-ideological, foreign-policy oriented statesmen/women. There used to be a respect for the rule of law, and I miss those kind of Republicans.
May 7, 2008 11:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Haven't we forgotten something here? It is bad enough Bush 1 is a weapons dealer, he was instrumental in selling our consumer soul to China..
Bush 1 started the wholesale retail transfer of middle class wealth to China's new "billinaire communist" elite, by introducing Sam Walton to the Chinese. He even made Walton a bona fide American hero with the Freedom medal (wonder if it was stamped "made in China"?)
Anyone remember, he was our first ambassador to China under Nixon?
Not to diminish Bush 2's pernicious and pervasive influence, but the sind of the father ARE the sins of the son. Just a generation apart.
And it is no coincidence that his biggest job as director of the CIA was to fix elections in third-world countries like Nicaragua, Colombia, Panama and Texas.
I still think 94' was an inside job, too many Dems who polled as being up by less than 10% lost by barely 2 or 3 percent. Maybe I need a tinfooli hat, but I suspect "they" were fixing elections right here in the good old US of A, but we weren't ready to believe it until they did it so supremely in 2000.
After that, we shold have known to look back at past results, and when I did so, some startling realities come to the surface.
Now, personally, I don't think we can trust ANYTHING the selective historians tell us about the Bush eras, both of them.
They both have secrets that would change our entire view of recent history, if they were ever revealed instead of sealed.
May 8, 2008 11:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
JEP07 - Liked this line... "third-world countries like Nicaragua, Colombia, Panama and Texas."
:) Hahaha!
May 8, 2008 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
H.W. was quoted as saying "if America ever
knew what we did to this country, they'd ride us out of town on a rail."
I have no reason to disbelieve him.
May 7, 2008 9:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can't find the quote. Would love to see the source... :)
May 7, 2008 11:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know this will seem like a bizarre thought (best kept to myself) & certainly lend nothing toward belief in my sanity (perhaps I'm a tin foil hat wearer). I've often thought (since early on) there is a very real possibility that George W. Bush is a clone of his Father (gone terribly wrong). If anyone could pull something like that off it woud have been Bush Sr. with all his CIA inner Gov't. history...
Just a thought...
May 8, 2008 11:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
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