Yesterday I posted Treatment of Bush a disgrace.
It’s main points as made by a WSJ op-ed contributor:
Mr. Bush has endured relentless attacks from the left while facing abandonment from the right. …The post has drawn a number of comments. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to read the comment thread.
It seems that no matter what Mr. Bush does, he is blamed for everything. He remains despised by the left while continuously disappointing the right.
Yet it should seem obvious that many of our country's current problems either existed long before Mr. Bush ever came to office, or are beyond his control. …
The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous [.] …
Our failure to stand by [Mr. Bush] has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty -- a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House. …
I want to post one of the comments here on the main page, say some things to the commenter, and then invite the commenter to respond with the promise I’ll post in full what he says on the main page.
From Ken in Dallas, a JinC Regular whose comments have added much to this blog:
I live in Texas so I had some knowledge of George Bush before he became President.*************************
As much as I admire his moral character and steadfastness, I felt he was ill prepared to lead us in Washington. He thought he was still in Texas where everyone got along. And then he forgot who elected him. All he had to do was reach across the aisle for the support of the Conservative wing of the Republican party....too difficult for a "compassionate conservative" I guess.
After his signing of the McCain-Feingold bill, the prescription drug monster, the Harriett Miers fiasco and then the incoherent statements made on network television on the CIR Act, I finally threw in the towel.
I'm sorry for the man but the ridicule was self induced.
To Ken:
President Bush has certainly made mistakes; and ridicule and very sharp criticism of any President are to be expected.
But my reading of the WSJ’s op-ed is this: the attacks on President Bush went way beyond typical rough political back-and-forth.
Sure, the Miers nomination, to take an example, was ill-conceived and very poorly handled by the WH when her name went to the Senate.
Criticism from both sides of the aisle and MSM was to be expected. Most of it that I saw was within the bounds of reasonableness.
But we’ve also had the “BUSH=HITLER” bumper stickers, the assassination jokes, and Dem Rep. Pete Stark, a friend and ally of Speaker Pelosi, standing on the House floor saying the President liked to see our troops in Iraq “have their heads blown off.”
Who’s forgotten Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 and its theme that President Bush knew in advance of 9/11, but let it happen because of his family’s connections to Saudi oil figures, including the bin Laden family?
Or that at Fahrenheit 9/11’s DC premiere many congressional Dems were in attendance and applauding?
Then came the Dems’ 2004 convention: Moore was seated in the Dems’ Honor Box alongside the equally “honorable” former President Jimmy Carter.
There are many more examples of disgraceful treatment of the President I could point to, but I’ll leave off doing that for now.
Ken, your past comments have indicated you’re a smart, fair person. Most people who comment here impress me that way, too.
So I’m responding to you and all others who may have read Treatment of Bush a disgrace.
I want to be sure I’ve left no doubt what I meant was disgraceful about the treatment President Bush has received from many leading Dems, their media flunkies, and their millions of followers.
They’ve been active, loud and reckless practitioners of what I’m talking about, while some GOP have abetted that treatment with their silence or confirming “whispers” or just plain “make a buck” shilling a la Scott McClellen.
Such treatment, unrelenting these past eight years, has been grossly unfair to the President and made the reasoned working of our democracy more difficult.
By stirring the passions and paranoia of the unstable, it’s placed the President’s safety and the safety of those who protect him at greater risk than they already face.
I’m sorry to say it will very likely “haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House.”
Now it's your turn if you care to respond, as I hope you do.
Sincerely,
John
3 comments:
I am a different Ken, but I'll respond. I voted for Bush twice and I do not regret it. Both Al Gore and John Kerry were far worse than Bush could ever be. He is an honest man who restored dignity to the Presidency after the eight year clown show under the Clintons. But Bush, like his father, actually believed that the Democrats would keep their promises and that they valued the country more than electoral success. He got taken, again and again. He never learned.
George W Bush will go down in history as a mediocre President who almost grasped greatness but failed. It will also be noted that he is a much better man than he is a President. He could not control his own party's slide into corruption. He allowed the Kennedys, the Pelosis and the Reids to control the agenda in Congress, even when he had the majority. History may be harsh for his inability to control government growth, but I think it will balance with an approval of his integrity.
He was the best available choice, which says more about us than it does about him.
President Bush was ill-served by our national intelligence services (principally the CIA) which were unable to provide him with reliable intelligence about Saddam's possession of WMD. Having served at the national level as an intelligence analyst (both Army and Navy), I have some knowledge of how things work up there. The CIA apparently bought into what the rest of the world's best intelligence and security services had concluded--that Saddam had WMDs and also had the intention of using them. Israel, France, Germany, Great Britain, and Russia all believed that to be the case. But that wasn't good enough for the rabid leftwing of the Democrat party (the majority, that is). They sold the idea that "Bush lied--people died" which has since become accepted "truth" in the MSM. Bush's failure to immediately rebut these specious charges only added to their efficacy. This campaign to belittle and cripple the incumbent president was thus successful in setting the stage for the campaign to undermine the president, the GOP, and ulltimately the nation. The mean-spirited campaign to blame Bush for Katrina also worked very well for the same reasons. Democrat gutter politics and Republican temerity combined to weaken the administration and eventually the country.
I earnestly hope the Republicans don't use similar tactics to undercut Obama's administration because the country deserves better. I am willing to wait and see how the Obama presidency approaches its responsibilities before rendering my judgement.
Tarheel Hawkeye
I wish I could take credit for this comment,
“President Bush was so intent on keeping our
country safe from outside terrorists, he failed to
confront the real terrorists within our borders, the corrupt media.”
I believe it is true that the media without honesty,
professional integrity, or reasonable civility boundaries, is a cancer that will destroy our great country. Who could forget the rabid press corps sneering while asking their fallacious questions?
The liberals after nearly eight years of insanity
against President Bush are demanding US citizens
give Obama a fair chance.
I just witnessed the most
corrupt and fraudulent election ever, and then I am told to respect that corruption.
I think I don’t respect
corruption and fraud, and the person or persons who
thought I ever would.
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