I'm left with a horrifying thought. The acolytes of 'Bush lied!' won't go away when Bush leaves the White House. But they won't become terrorists, either. They will settle into one of those domesticated cults, mixing apocalyptic claims with genial demeanor: 'The End of the World is Upon Us--Please Give Generously.' Even our darkest obsessions may end with 'Have a nice day.'"-- Jeremy Rabkin, a professor of law at George Mason University, writing for The Weekly Standard
The acolytes of 'Bush lied!' won't go away when Bush leaves the White House.
ReplyDelete---------------
The fact that 2/3 of the American public aren't going to simply disappear when Bush leaves office is a relief, actually.
For one thing, if 200 million people simply vanished into the clean blue sky, we'd have much bigger problems in this country than assessing the legacy of some dishonest bumbler of an ex-president.
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=614
One measure of the president's political problems is that by 64 to 32 percent, virtually a two-to-one majority, many people believe that the Bush administration "generally misleads the public on current issues to achieve their own ends."
Sigh. How many times do I have to tell you? Why, it's practically the reason this blog exists:
ReplyDeleteBelieving something doesn't make it true.
Didn't you hear Nancy Pelosi? Find a crime. Bring up a real life crime, not just some call you disagree with.
You can't.
And she can't either. But you also can't deal with why. Which hasn't caused you to shut up. Which, frankly, makes you unpleasant.
Congress polls lower than the President. The Democrats can't get their empty suit to convincingly wave it's arms, even with a wind at their back. And the American People are doing a gut check.
History will be kind to George W. Bush.
Sure, because the fifties were sooo much better than the sixties!
ReplyDeleteAs much as I came in at the punk era - and they professed to hate hippies - a lot of the radical 'think for yourself instead of blindly obeying authority' may never have come to pass without the hippies thinking it first.
History will be kind to George W Bush?!!!! Has he got one of those last stretch plans to capture Osama and prove that he could do it all along? Forgetting New Orleans and the inability to string together a complete sentence in public, the only way this has a snowball's chance in Hell of happening is if the Iraq invasion turns out to secure peace in the Middle East.
And since there has NEVER been peace in the Middle East, even when there were Presidents with far better cache, this doesn't appear to be particularly likely.
No, history will accord Bush the inspirational image of Calvin Coolidge, the mendacity of Richard Nixon, the warrior credentials of Lyndon B Johnson, and the financial acumen of a grade school dropout in mathematics (no actual past President has been such a high spender for such poor gain).
Poor Ol' Berko, talking like a fool again:
ReplyDelete"a lot of the radical 'think for yourself instead of blindly obeying authority' may never have come to pass without the hippies thinking it first."
Boy Berko, you not only drank the Kool-Aid but must have been invited to help make it! But I am happy, as a black American, to be given a "teaching moment" of such vibrant potential.
Leaving aside the "wisdom" of hippies (of which there is little to be found and even less one can prove - especial when it comes to their so-called "radical" notions) I think one look at the story of Henry "Box" Brown can easily dispel any claim that it took a bunch of silly hippies to teach anyone anything important about the awesome meaning of freedom in America, of which (I can assure you) hippies knew nothing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Box_Brown
The 60's beat the 50's? Really? Both the American Civil Rights Movement and American Rock 'N' Roll (two supposed pillars of the 60's) were 50's phenomena - and the product of black Americans, not hippies - but, of course, the hippies took credit for both (but responsibility for neither) and your dumb ass is more than happy to give it to them, because doing the hard work (of opening a book and actually challenging your ideas in ways "radical" hippies are not capable of) is just too much to ask. Much easier to go on insulting the people who really deserve the credit instead, in the traditional hippie display of "standing up to authority." What a load of bullshit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_rights_movement#Civil_Rights_Movement_in_the_United_States">American Civil Rights Movement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_and_roll">Rock 'N' Roll
Hippies were - and always have been - clueless; good for nothing more than bragging about things they didn't do, to get credit they didn't deserve, over others who deserved better. Their kind have always been a pain in the ass to a well-functioning society. You seem intent on continuing this tradition.
"History will be kind to George W Bush?!!!! Has he got one of those last stretch plans to capture Osama and prove that he could do it all along? Forgetting New Orleans and the inability to string together a complete sentence in public, the only way this has a snowball's chance in Hell of happening is if the Iraq invasion turns out to secure peace in the Middle East."
You're hopeless: Bush no more has to capture bin Laden than America had to capture Hitler in WWII. All Bush had to do was be willing to fight and win the war, which he has in spectacular fashion. And I dare you to study the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina, paying extra attention to the actions of the "Big Easy's" Mayor and Governor, and come away blaming the president for anything that occurred there. Here, also from Wikipedia:
"Within the United States and as delineated in the National Response Plan, disaster response and planning is first and foremost a local government responsibility."
Local government? Funny but that doesn't fall under President Bush's command. Keep going:
"Criticism from politicians, activists, pundits and journalists of all stripes was directed at the local and state and governments headed by Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco. Nagin and Blanco were criticized for failing to implement New Orleans' evacuation plan and for ordering residents to a shelter of last resort without any provisions for food, water, security, or sanitary conditions. Perhaps the most important criticism of Nagin was that he delayed his emergency evacuation order until 19 hours before landfall, which led to hundreds of deaths of people who (by that time) could not find any way out of the city."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_katrina#Government_response
It's a lie, another dirty lie, with Democrats (all around) passing the buck in the worst way. And you bought it, Berko - again. That should give you pause, but I know it won't: that an event of such magnitude can take place in the modern era and, still, the information surrounding it can come out completely wrong. There's still no cure for mass hysteria, I guess.
I think, in time, you'll find George W. Bush was been done wrong (on so many levels) and, one day, you'll be amazed, as I am, that he didn't attack his critics and those who just plain lied on him - at all. He was a strong presence when the rest of you were scared of your own shadows - or tales of catastrophic climate change in the future where they could never be checked - which is the same thing. This was The Age of Cowardice. Of losers. And liars. People who brag when they're high.
It's over, Berko. We - The Right - have won. And, like I said, history will be kind. Ol' Georgie Boy will get his face on Mount Rushmore one day, you'll see. (The American people did the same thing to Lincoln and Truman.) Why, one day, even the great unwashed of the hippies will get credit for the one thing they definitely deserve it for:
Being the inspiration for the phrase "Get a room."
You should know better, Crack Emcee. The difference between me and your other critics/correspondents is:
ReplyDelete1. I identify myself.
2. I address points specifically and I obviously do interrogate assumptions.
Yes, rock'n'roll is a black creation of the nineteen fifties, with its antecedent further back in blues and R'n'B. Again, it's all black music. This response of yours, buried away in comments, is one of the best points you've made and I don't mind copping a bit of flak in order for you to make it. As I've said, happy to be your Moriarty.
But the fifties is where it began. The sixties is where it reached full flower, as it were. Even the average slob is less rigid and codified in their thinking as a result. Now that's a whole combination of reasons; certainly not the Haight-Ashbury crowd alone. But they were, if nothing else, a great foil to then take society - and the individual - in a new direction.
But I'm not going to spend too much time defending them as they're another cog in the wheel, not much more.
As far as Bush, well he said it was all over a few years ago and a fair few people have died since then and you haven't withdrawn so, might I suggest, saying you've won is premature.
Hell you reckon you won Vietnam. Half won Vietnam, half won Korea. Not the same thing.
Maybe you'll have a North Iraq or a West Iran and think you've won. Bush has won nothing yet, never mind in 'spectacular fashion'.
re: Katrina. We have states here too and state-based disasters. But the leader doesn't sit on his arse for a week waiting for everyone else to get their shit together. That's the difference. He judges the scale of the disaster and sends in help when it's needed. Works a lot better that way.
But, yes, everybody else was at fault: there was no preparation for specific warning about using passenger jets as weapons, intelligence got it wrong about the WMDs, the state governor wasn't prepared for the hurricane, the economy - despite unprecedented govt spending - fried all on its own. Sure.
Trouble is, I remember the Right whining about things that didn't fall directly under Clinton's purview either. And he knew how to win a war with minimal casualties and expense. And he could balance the books.
Berko,
ReplyDeleteYou still miss the point, man: the hippies saw a parade and declared themselves the leaders of it because, at the time, no one had the power to make them get out of the way. (Something that's just occurring now.)
Your conception of the Bush administration just reminds me of that old song, "If you don't know me by now,..."