July 6, 2009

"She says, 'Yeah, you are free to take out the garbage and free to mow the lawn."

"I said 'wait a minute, you're talking to the former president.' And she said, 'Well, consider that your new domestic policy agenda.'"

Cornball foolery in the ex-President's new domain.

57 comments:

Chase said...

ONE thing is certain in politics:

The President who leaves office with low approval ratings can expect them to rise. Jimmy Carter. Richard Nixon.

He's GOT to be happy on this side, quietly watching the Democrats who maligned him out of their petty and evil hatred squirm and - was history will shortly prove - fail to produce anything better.

Sweet Justice.

Salamandyr said...

I'm pretty sure that one January 21st, the happiest man in America was George W. Bush. I would imagine, he woke up at 5 am, realized there wasn't a single national crisis he had to attend to, and rolled over and went back to sleep.

Dick Cheney, on the other hand, was just finding out how much money his blind trust had lost, and having another heart attack.

Jeremy said...

Salamandyr said..."I'm pretty sure that one January 21st, the happiest man in America was George W. Bush. I would imagine, he woke up at 5 am, realized there wasn't a single national crisis he had to attend to, and rolled over and went back to sleep."

As if he was on top of any "national crisis" before the 21st.

What is it about this idiot that makes so many here continue to consider him anything but an abject failure?

You act as if the 70% of the American public who feel he was a failure are fools...and you're the only ones who really understand George W. Bush.

Crimso said...

Thread's over.

KCFleming said...

Bush is still a funny guy, able to laugh at himself, a capacity sorely needed by the current Administration.

I liked this comment:
"Bush's principles ring true in Oklahoma, said Kris Day, who owns The Cowboy's Tack Shop with her husband, Neal. ""We're conservative," she said. "We don't spend money we don't have."

A rather pointed jab at Obama.

Randy said...

Did not!
Did too!
Hitler!
Nazi!

Godwin's Law!

jag said...

Bush remains very popular here in Oklahoma, a state drifting away, culturally, from the rest of the U.S..

I would not interpret the 'massive' crowd in Woodward as a sign of things to come for Bush.

Randy said...

Pogo, in all fairness, it is a bit rich to pretend that Bush did not spend vast sums of money we didn't have.

MadisonMan said...

Yes, I was going to say the same thing: It was a rather pointed jab at Bush as well.

MadisonMan said...

(Cue the response: But Bush wasn't a real conservative!)

How does one make that little trademark sign?

Randy said...

THis one: ™? It's Alt+0153

Unknown said...

One thing Bush has in spades over Obama is a sense of humor, mostly because he doesn't take himself too seriously.

I'm Full of Soup said...

What- no name for your post?

Now you need a tag for "posts with no name".

Jeremy said...

"We don't spend money we don't have."


Right.

This from a man who's net worth hovers around 30 million or more...and who never worked a day in his life unless it was tied to daddy's friends.

Oh, and the same guy who inherited a 500 billion surplus...and ran it into a 2 trillion dollar deficit.

Jeremy said...

Suddenly, Bush is some kind of really funny guy who was in complete control of government spending.

Now THAT is FUNNY.

Salamandyr said...

What is it about this idiot that makes so many here continue to consider him anything but an abject failure?

Because he wasn't a failure. He did some things right, he did some things wrong. Unlike you, I don't regard the passage of time as a project, nor do I have some objective standard by which I judge "winning" or "losing" at life.

You act as if the 70% of the American public who feel he was a failure are fools...and you're the only ones who really understand George W. Bush.

I don't act anything, that's you making an assumption of yourself. A big chunk of the 70% percent disapproving of him approved of him not too many months before, and you thought they were fools. And a fair chunk of those disapprovers disliked Bush because for his insufficient commitment to conservatism, and you claim to speak for them.

Though nothing about my post implied approval or disapproval of the former President and the job he did, you make the assumption that, since I don't viscerally hate the man's existence, I must be some kind of lapdog. Considering that misunderstanding, misreading, and misjudgement, the only fool here, is you.

Laura(southernxyl) said...

"We don't spend money we don't have."


Right.

This from a man who's net worth hovers around 30 million or more...and who never worked a day in his life unless it was tied to daddy's friends.

Oh, and the same guy who inherited a 500 billion surplus...and ran it into a 2 trillion dollar deficit.

Wow. How'd you know all of that about Kris Day?

I'm Full of Soup said...

Salamandyr asked:

"What is it about this idiot that makes so many here continue to consider him anything but an abject failure?"

It is not nice to talk that way about Jeremy Michael LucyOlddson Gene Olson.

Chase said...

Jeremy and Jag,

You need to read the first comment over and over again.

ricpic said...

The President said the victims of Katrina also displayed great courage.

Will the hypocrite pandering to underclass blacks never end?

Jeremy said...

Salamandyr = Delusion.

jag said...

@ Chase--

reading it over and over again won't make it true (even though I wish it were true).

Jeremy said...

AJ = Obsessed

Jeremy said...

Chase - G.W. is about the only person in the world who would actually "be happy on this side."

It's called denial.

And I love how G.W. leaving the country buried i debt, still fighting two wars...is somehow, in your little mind, "Sweet Justice."

Strange way for an American to feel.

DADvocate said...

This from a man who's net worth hovers around 30 million or more...and who never worked a day in his life unless it was tied to daddy's friends.

It's obvious that Jeremy is jealous. One of the seven deadly sins I believe.

At first I thought Jeremy was talking about Al Gore but then I remembered Al Gore is worth over $100 million.

Jeremy said...

I love the new Princess Sarah slogan being bandied about:

"The I-Quit-A-Rod"

Rough and tough point guard walks off court halfway through the 4th quarter...that'll teach 'em.

You betcha!!

"Quitters never win and winners never quit."

Jeremy said...

DADvocate - Whenever I hear people who are worth millions and have lived off their daddy's friend's money...I have a tough time accepting them saying "We don't spend money we don't have."

Whose money did he think he was spending over the eight years he held the White House?

His own?

Chase said...

Jeremy,

Obviously you are not a Bush supporter and I am.

But without any help from either you or me, George W Bush has already started to go up in the polls. What I am saying - and you know it's true - is that it is inevitable. You saw the Reagan funeral trappings and coverage, didn't you? His poll numbers were not as low as W's, but hewas as reviled and hated by his political opponents as any American ever was.
A member of the Kennedy family, an elected official (not Teddy) called Reagan worse than Joseph McCarthy and deserving of a worse fate.


We will probably forever disagree as to what rising poll numbers of W mean. But it is already happening, and will continue to no matter the political winds.

And c'mon man - you and I have actually had civil conversation recently. So, please answer my questions: I promise to not go back for the jugular; this isn't a trick question - I'll respect your comments. I do want to know what you seriously think. Comment here or over on the Sarah Palin Post:

1) What would a Sarah Palin Administration be like?

2) What would America be like under a Sarah Palin adminstration.

Salamandyr said...

Salamandyr = Delusion.

If that's the best you have, you're not worth my time.

bagoh20 said...

Someone farted in here...again.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Chase....don't feed the troll

Anonymous said...

We can be certain that the current occupant of the Oval Office hasn't mowed a lawn, cut brush, dug a ditch, never had dirt under his finger nails or cracked and calloused hands. None of our new Mandarin overlords have.

Salamandyr said...

By the way, what happened to Palladian?

I'm Full of Soup said...

Lars:

I love when they start babbling about how everyone should "volunteer".

Neither of the Obamas ever did a thing unless a paycheck was involved. They don't even know what the word "volunteer" truly means.

Unknown said...

"We don't spend money we don't have."

A little help for those of you deriding Bush for this comment: It was not Bush's quote. It was Kris Day, "who owns The Cowboy's Tack Shop with her husband, Neal."

I'm Full of Soup said...

I think Palladian could not stand the thought of the prolific troll who will not be named.

Jim said...

"And a fair chunk of those disapprovers disliked Bush because for his insufficient commitment to conservatism, and you claim to speak for them."

This is the part that Bush's detractors will never admit: that the reason Bush's approval ratings were so low is not because Leftists hated him. They hated him with a white-hot rage since before he ever took office, or do they claim that they never said the things they did in the run-up to the 2000 election?

They hated, and they will always hate him. There's no changing that. He wasn't one of Them, so they spent 8 years pouring every ounce of vitriol in their beings to attempting to destroy him.

No. The primary reason that Bush's approval numbers went so far south is that conservatives disapproved of his big spending, amnesty and refusal to fight back against the slurs of the Left. He came to be regarded as weak for this and for not vetoing the bloated spending bills that the Democratic Congress starting passing when they took over the House and Senate in 2006.

[This is the part that always amuses me the most about Leftist complaints about Bush spending. The graph of the federal deficits clearly shows exactly when the Democrats took over the Congress as spending spiked beginning in 2006. But they want to pretend that it was all Bush despite the obvious truth that, although Bush could have vetoed those bills, they were first drafted and passed by Democrats.]

What is happening now is essentially buyer's remorse. Although people complained about Republican control, they are now in the midst of finding out just what the alternative to overspending really is: massive, generation-crippling overspending.
Essentially, it's "Yeah, we didn't like what Bush did, but compared to what we've got now he was way better."

Plus the time and distance from the events are bringing history back into focus. Although the Left screams about "WMDs" in Iraq, history has shown, and is in the process of showing,that it was only one of many rational reasons to go into Iraq. Bush said that planting a democracy in the Iraq would have the effect of raising up democracy elsewhere. Al-Sistani, the Iraqi Shiite cleric, has played an important role in undermining the religious justification for Iran's theocracy. The recent statement by the clerics in Qom are a direct result of Sistani's freedom to act free of the constraints of Saddam's regime. Let's not forget that the Lebanese also credit Iraq for the success of their elections as well.

Even Obama has been forced to backtrack on his commitment to repeal the Bush tax cuts. If that isn't an indictment of those who claimed that they didn't work to stimulate the economy, then I don't know what is.

Over and over again, Obama has had to backtrack on promises to repeal Bush policies. If Leftists don't understand that it gives the ordinary American pause to rethink how valid their criticisms about their policies were, then they have a serious comprehension problem.

Just remember that the same folks who now claim that they always supported Reagan's policies and like to cite Reagan in their speechifying are the same ones who were so nasty and vile while Reagan was in office. Bush may not be Reagan, but Leftists will always be Leftists.

Anonymous said...

Anyway: Bush merely spent money Bush didn't have. Obama's spending money God doesn't have.

Jim said...

Paul Z -

LOL

I've never heard it phrased that way, but I had to laugh because it so neatly encapsulates the difference between the current and past administrations.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Bush's fiscal track record really is indefensible.

That is the only issue where Jeremy and I could agree.

mariner said...

Paul Z:

Nicely done!

Anonymous said...

"I love when they start babbling about how everyone should "volunteer"."

I gag when I hear someone ,bravely, talking about doing 'public service',like they're sacrificing something and putting themselves in harms way.

Elliott A said...

Bush's Iraq will be a success, and Obama's Afghanastan a failure. History will ultimately be the final decider.

Cedarford said...

Chase said...
ONE thing is certain in politics:

The President who leaves office with low approval ratings can expect them to rise. Jimmy Carter. Richard Nixon.


Nixon's reputation has risen considerably in the last 20 years, particularly with foreign historians - though they think his greatest sin was not Watergate, but toppling Allende. Remember, he wasn't a failed President. He was an enormously consequential one who did a number of successful, historically significant things before the legal system forced him out.

Carter's reputation hasn't improved. A failure. And Democrats and Republicans alike wish he would have just shut up and retired to some remote Georgian cabin in the woods.
As another failed President, Dubya I think provokes the Carter "just shut up and go away!" reaction across the spectrum (Outside the last of the neocons and Corporatists hungry for a leader that catered to their every whim).

Unknown said...

Bush might have been fiscally irresponsible but Obama, according to this year's budget figures, is 8x as irresponsible. I think I rather have the Bush's version.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Lars:

I agree with you. Public service trumps volunteer in the nausea quotient.

For example:

"He has spent a lifetime in public [where he has gotten rich and now has a big fat bulletproof pension]."

ricpic said...

God makes billions and billions of galaxies from dust but Obama makes trillions and trillions of debt in dollars that don't exist! Take that God!!

Hoosier Daddy said...

And I love how G.W. leaving the country buried i debt, still fighting two wars...is somehow, in your little mind, "Sweet Justice."

Newsflash. The country was buried in debt the day Bush took office in 2000. The so called 'surplus' was a budget surplus based largely on projected tax receipts but we were still sitting at around $5 trillion in national debt. That's a fact.

Bush doubled that debt in his 8 years in office and Obama is now hell bent on topping that achievement. I heard that once you're in a hole you should stop digging but I guess they don't teach those common sense proverbs in high fallutin Ivy League schools.

Unknown said...

"God makes billions and billions of galaxies from dust but Obama makes trillions and trillions of debt in dollars that don't exist! Take that God!!"

Obama probably won't be banned from Michael Jackson's memorial service either.

Anonymous said...

What Bush added, Obama has multiplied.

Chase said...

Carter's reputation hasn't improved. A failure. And Democrats and Republicans alike wish he would have just shut up and retired to some remote Georgian cabin in the woods.
As another failed President, Dubya I think provokes the Carter "just shut up and go away!" reaction across the spectrum (Outside the last of the neocons and Corporatists hungry for a leader that catered to their every whim).


You make 2 mistakes in your reasoning here C-man:

1) Carter's reputation has vastly improved (and I say that not as any kind of fan of Jimmy Carter)- but that's not the point being made. The point is that POLLS - how America views something at the time the poll is taken - are already on the way up for George W AND will continue to do so over the next generation. Your opinion as to whether they should or not is irrelevant to my point.

PS to #1: Cedarford - you write a lot - and often coherently, but it is rare that you say something directly relevant to the post at hand. That is your privilege, and often moves the discussion down interesting roads, but is ineffective when you believe that what you are saying counters another comment. Like you failed to do in addressing my points. FOCUS.

2) Bush will not be seen as a failed President by any standard by the time the first true historian assessments come out approximately one generation from now. There will always be politically motivated debate attached to historical discussions and side arguments as to degrees of success or failure in specific areas, but there is no logical way his Presidency will be viewed as a failure except by partisans.

DADvocate said...

Jeremy - your efforts would be much better spend worrying about what the current president is spending and plans to spend. But, spending not really the point, is it?

Kansas City said...

Ann reveals a bit of elitism in her characterization of a funny line as "cornball foolery."

Chase is right on the merits. People declaring Bush the worst, or among the worst, president are partisans or fools, or both.

History will judge in time. He left a country strong in the world, a victor in two wars (including one where he stood firm in the face of intense opposition -- Harry "the war is lost" Byrd and Barack "immediate withdrawal" Obama), and after about six year of economic growth, in what was then a mild recession [of course, presidents typically have little to do with the economy, unless they bungle something that causes problems, which Bush really did not do].

He actually, if lucky, has the chance to be judged a near great president, if democracy and freedom breaks out and sticks from Afghanistan through Lebanon (or a good portion thereof).

Overall, he is likely to up and Clinton is likely to go down. Justice.

LonewackoDotCom said...

They're a fun couple, really a laugh-a-minute.

But, I'll bet Bush is sorry that his pledge to a foreign government didn't work out, otherwise he'd be able to find some "willing workers" to mow his own lawn.

(Note: everything in this comment is completely off Althouse's radar.)

jag said...

Kansas City--

As much as I like Bush...
1) no weapons of mass destruction
2) too few troops to occupy iraq
3) no fiscal discipline
4) inept response to katrina
5) ignored gathering storm of financial meltdown (and it cost McCain the election)
He is a good man with noble sentiments but he was not a great president.

Kansas City said...

Jag,

I agree with your overall assessment of "a good man with noble sentiments but he was not a great president." I had said, if lucky, near great, not that Bush will be judged a great president. I liked Bush's comment when asked about history's judgment, something along the lines of "we'll all be dead."

As to your itemization, I agree with them except for the overly critical view of Katrina (that was clearly media driven and to a significant degree inaccurate) and, as to the financial meltdown, it was missed by virtually everyone and what could have been done?

Finally, I have a different take on the "no weapons of mass destruction." I always thanked God that there were not any, or else they would have been used on our soldiers. So I think the mistake on WMD produced two benefits: (1) we threw out Sadaam and created the opportunity for real change in the middle east; and (2) our soldiers were not killed by WMD.

Revenant said...

I disagreed with a lot of what Bush did (on domestic issues, particularly). But I find it impossible to dislike the guy.