You don't see George W. Bush traveling around the country campaigning for Republicans, even in a gentle, dignified way. But his fellow former President Clinton is jumping into the Wisconsin recall election. Note too that Bush never criticizes President Obama, to whom he paid a cordial visit in the White House yesterday:
Beautiful clip:
Three of the 5 living Presidents were there in that charming scene. Bill Clinton was in Milwaukee, insulting Scott Walker. I don't know what Jimmy Carter was doing. But you tell me: How should a former President conduct himself? Should he do partisan politics, or should he withdraw to a higher plane of national eminence?
ADDED: What did they say off camera? I'm picturing some reference to the time Bush said "I want justice, and there's an old poster out West I recall, that said, 'Wanted, Dead or Alive'"and how Obama went with: dead.
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Ha.
If Clinton were not running around the country, where would he get his pussy.
A man's gotta do what he's gotta do.
GOP ex-Presidents (Bush W, W H, Ford, Reagan. Nixon, Ford, and Eisenhower see themselves as gentlemen and gentlemen don't make things harder for the POTUS and therefore the country. Dem ex-presidents since Truman, love the game too much to let it go.
Let me put it less crassly.
Clinton's entire self is defined by the adulation he gets from the public, the media and certain kinds of women. Without this he shrivels up.
Bush needs his self belief in his duty and his character. He is past the point of needing a lot of external conformation.
This was not always true of Bush, but Clinton has not changed in this regard.
Clinton was an ass twenty years ago and is still an ass today.
A higher plane of national eminence? I think it depends on how you view the office. If the president is a substitute for an hereditary monarch, then he should remain in the 'palace of his abdication' and out of the public gaze. If he is a public servant who, among other jobs and offices, served for four years as chief magistrate, why shouldn't he remain involved in political life?
Former Presidents should stay out of politics except in times of extreme national emergency.
See that, how President bush even made me like President Obama for a moment. THAT, folks, is charisma.
You misunderestimate Clinton's intellect. The converse is that you are overestimating Bush's. Getting through those two terms sapped any little bit of gray cells he had. But I think he is fundamentally a decent guy and he seems like a very nice guy next to Obama. Let Clinton be Clinton. Comparisons like these are ludicrous and show your bias. Everyone even presidents have a right to lead their lives the way they see fit.
Heh! You think Clinton and Carter are bad? Wait till Obama is out of office!!
pm317
You are aware of the hypocrisy of your statement? Or did you mean it to be satire?
So you don't like Clinton. We hear you loud and clear.
The only sure way to get better ex-presidents is to elect better presidents.
Dubya and Miss Laura are the gold standard of deportment of Presidential couples.
I think they've learned by watching not only the Demos, but his father (to a much lesser extent) as well.
We can only shudder at the thought of what the Os will be like.
Ann speaks of cruel neutrality but she is deluding herself. It is irritating to see her ridiculous bias against the Clintons. She sounds sophomoric when she goes after them.
"If Clinton were not running around the country, where would he get his pussy."
Apparently, he dabbles in the international market, as well, as the past few days have demonstrated.
"Without this he shrivels up."
TMI. MTMI.
"Dem ex-presidents since Truman, love the game too much to let it go."
I would note that John Kennedy also avoided making an ass of himself when he left office.
Bill Clinton is not a 'nice guy', he is a serial whore monger without guilt.
He has a lot of class, trouble is, it's all third/
I never fail to smile when I see W.
He is simply the greatest living president of my lifetime.
Obama and Michelle are really nice in that video clip, along with the charming George W.
What did they say off camera? I'm picturing some reference to the time Bush said "I want justice, and there's an old poster out West I recall, that said, 'Wanted, Dead or Alive'"and how Obama went with: dead.
And there was the unconditionally loving HW, in a wheelchair and wearing patriotic socks.
The old man has class. W has grown into it. Clinton and Carter are bad examples of ex Presidents. Both Bushs are great examples.
No politicking and No porn star cavorting! How can Slick Willie think that pic with the porns was a good idea?
I've been through Crawford, Texas on the train, several times!
Seeing Crawford tells you a lot about W!
I just remembered the story of W and Laura showing up at the Fort Hood gate after the Nidal Hasan shooting. Came, unannounced, to visit the wounded soldiers! That is class!
When GWB hosted Clinton for the unveiling of Clinton's portrait, Bush made a deliberate decision to be very warm and dignified. Clinton responded in kind, and the two developed a relationship. GHWB and Clinton developed a famous bromance.
If you recall, Clinton did not badmouth W in the 2004 campaign. He barely campaigned for Kerry, and he said he liked both men.
It will be interesting to see if Obama can be as big as any of these three men.
I took detours on my trip out west to see both Clintons and Bubba's hometown. I spent a night oin Midland. Both towns suck.
cubanbob said...
Clinton was an ass twenty years ago and is still an ass today.
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Same could be said about Nixon.
Like it or not, both guys possessed brilliant minds and were not about to retire to a golf course - they had more to contribute, they believed.
I don't believe that former presidents should continue to perform in the public arena except in a low key personal way. The visits by the Bushs to FT Hood or to the Dallas airport are fine. I neither case did they make any public statements relatingf to policy, politics, or national party.
The exception would be if a current president specifically asked that a former president represent the country, not the current president, in some capacity. On a couple of occasions former presidents attended state funerals when asked by the sitting president if I recall correctly.
The presentation was that the former president was in fact representing the US, not the current president, to avoid any question of priority or insult etc.
Ann Althouse said...
Obama and Michelle are really nice in that video clip, along with the charming George W.
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OMG, she(Ann) is laying it on thick just to irritate me.
@Cedarford, yeah, these people want a smart, intellectual like Bill Clinton to go to some ranch and fade away. How stupid is that? His CGI is a phenomenal success.
@Maybee, thank you for setting it right.
Besides, Clinton is not the only one going after Obama. A lot of people are saying it the way it is for Obama's campaign and some of them are black centrist politicians, if skin color makes a difference for some people.
Ann's mushy heart toward Obama is unbecoming of a purported serious analyst.
Seems like Clinton is doing what he can to imitate the James Garner character from the movie 'My Fellow Americans". Meanwhile Bush is (wisely) not imitating the Jack Lemmon character.
A very funny movie, btw.
I thought the story was Eisenhower took Kennedy to task over The Bay of Pigs privately.
This is what you do.
Carter is horrible, you don't love me so I'll badmouth you.
Obama will be worse.
I don't recall Truman, so the 1st president to show disrespect to the office was Carter. You don't do that. Just like when the former rapist-in-chief called 41 Mr. Bush. I don't remember that growing up either.
I LOVED Drudge's photo of them, O blaming W.
I thought Bill Clinton had gone vegan.
Dubya is happy in his skin. Clinton needs the action because without it the bleakness of his situation is unbearable.
If he is a public servant who, among other jobs and offices, served for four years as chief magistrate, why shouldn't he remain involved in political life?
So basically former GOP Presidents are idiots that they don't remain in perpetual campaign mode. It's all about the POWER man, you gotta grab it while you can and STUFF it down our throats. POWER POWER POWER all the time. PUSH PUSH PUSH all the time. PUSH PUSH PUSH all the time RIGHT ON DOWN THE LINE!
Only EX-PRESIDENT DEMOCRATS whine.
Why?
Class, or should I say LACK OF CLASS. Instead of letting the next President try go keep the country going they sit there and nit-pick. Nit-pick, interfere, muddy the water, cause trouble, etc...
Fits their party.
The party of cry babies.
Just finished "Colonel Roosevelt", the third in the Theodore Roosevelt trilogy by Edmund Morris. Although Roosevelt tried to remain silent, he laid into Woodrow Wilson ferociously. As World War I started and dragged on he criticized Wilson in speeches and in articles published in magazines and newspapers for refusing to start any sort of preparation of either the Navy or the Army for a war he believed the United States would soon join. He believed Wilson and his Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, to be ditherers whose refusal to face reality would cause many needless deaths.
He was also extremely vocal as well of the Taft administration, though to a lesser degree.
President George Bush has class. Democrats? Not so much.
TR was still hoping to be President again. He was not a former president in the sense of being ineligible for election again.
Pity W didn't respond to Little Black Jesus' whining about the "mess" he "inherited" - on a day that should have been free from politics, no less - by saying that he was looking forward to the day he could see Obama being hung.
Worthless, classless ghetto trash. Him and his sour-faced, estrogen-deficient harridan of a "wife."
Best former Presidents ever:
1. Washington for deciding to limit himself and set a precedent for two terms.
2. Adams II for getting himself elected to Congress and acting thereafter as a legislator not an executive.
3. Truman for keeping quiet though he hated Eisenhower.
4. Eisenhower for humility in the face of being a great military and political hero. Also for keeping his disdain for Kennedy under wraps.
5. Grant for his memoirs.
6. Bush 41 and 43 (tie) for quiet class.
7. Reagan for his amazing letter (probably should be higher.)justepd
Honorable Mention: Hoover, LBJ, Jefferson.
You might want to add Ford because he was the first one to figure out how to get rich as a former President.
Question: Would Dems be offended if Slick Willie became a spokesman for Viagra?
Third Coast said...
Question: Would Dems be offended if Slick Willie became a spokesman for Viagra?
I don't think that Hillary would be very happy at all. One Democrat, and the only one who would be offended.
I wonder what W. thinks about Obama leaking... nay, gushing national security secrets (including re programs started by W), in a shameless campaign effort to get (or rather keep) votes.
Ann Althouse,
Obama and Michelle are really nice in that video clip, along with the charming George W.
What did they say off camera? I'm picturing some reference to the time Bush said "I want justice, and there's an old poster out West I recall, that said, 'Wanted, Dead or Alive'"and how Obama went with: dead.
Damn, but you are fixated on those assholes. Like the NYT, you will spin anything to look like Obama is AWESOME when, in truth, he's full of shit.
It was the Obama's who shuddered, and bitched, when George said "Wanted, Dead or Alive" - and probably you, too - so don't try and bullshit me. That backstabbing bean pole wouldn't be in the WH without betraying everything W stood for, so fuck him, fuck your comment, and fuck the metric system.
You're only fooling yourself,...
pm317, when you state that George W. Bush was dumb, you only reinforce that you are not a serious person.
3. Truman for keeping quiet though he hated Eisenhower.
To bad that's not true. Truman wrote articles blasting Eisenhower which were chock full of lies. Discovered just how active Truman was in his disinformation campaign was a big factor in me losing all respect for him.
Truman may be the most overrated president.
and fuck the metric system.
Amen.
"Dubya and Miss Laura are the gold standard of deportment of Presidential couples. "
Bush did not do some things he should have done, like reining in Alan Greenspan and the Democrats running Fannie Mae, but he is the class of ex-presidents, except perhaps, his father.
Bush allowed the Usurper to ascend to the Presidency. That he is quiet now is no act of "grace".
Best former Presidents ever:
Don't forget Taft, who became Chief Justice, a position that better suited him anyway.
Bush 43 vs Clinton
Character matters
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