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A Vanity Fair article by Juli Weiner:
But if you are younger than 24, you might not have attended anti-Bush rallies in high school and in college. You might not have pinned “SHRUB” buttons to your tote bag, and might not even remember Bush as a war-lovin’, vowel-droppin’, faux-folksy, ostentatiously religious Connecticut cowboy. This is because Bush has, quietly and wholly, ingeniously refashioned himself into an Internet-friendly, cat-loving, ironic-hat-wearing painter-cum-Instagram savant. Lately, George W. Bush is a hipster icon, and the Internet, unofficial Fourth Estate of the youth of America, is totally buying it.
Rush Limbaugh was going on about it today.
By the way, folks, this Vanity Fair piece on Bush is really snarky. It's as snarky as anything else ever was about Bush. But the comments by readers to the Vanity Fair piece are really positive. I'll tell you, the media, it's under the radar right now, but the media is livid about this.... And they are frosted. They are livid.....
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47 comments:
Does Vanity Fair know the difference between a vowel and a consonant? If they're using "vowel-droppin'" as an illustration of Bush's verbal tic, that's an example of consonant-dropping, not vowel-dropping. If they were thinking of 'nucular', that drops one vowel (e) and adds another (u), or perhaps moves the vowel while changing its quality. So just what vowels does Bush drop?
Let's face it, the absolute idolatry of Obama by the national (New York) media has shown everyone that those national (New York) media folks are just wankers.
When the incarnate of your worldview displays such incompetence you don't get to opine on what is or is not cool. You thought Obama was cool. You don't know shit.
I guess that the vowel that Mr. Bush dropped was when he referred to Vanity fair and its writers as a 'passel of useless -ssholes".
An article by a Weiner next to a photo of a Brat.
An observation.
Bush, Texas Rangers owner, pre politics, was a pretty good guy, but being so "stoopid" and beating Ann Richards for governor, jump started a long period of media hatred. He's not really changed.
I had to check out thoughtcatalog.com based on this article. There is fifteen seconds I will never get back.
Notice in the comments they still accuse Bush of being a liar without evidence.
SteveR: "Bush, Texas Rangers owner, pre politics, was a pretty good guy, but being so "stoopid" and beating Ann Richards for governor, jump started a long period of media hatred."
Similar to the hatred the media had for Nixon after he defeated the well known soviet-lovin' leftist Helen Gahagan Douglas.
Similar topic, this story on NPR today was SHOCKINGLY Bush-positive:
How The U.S. Helped Fight The Global AIDS Epidemic
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/12/17/251950362/how-the-u-s-helped-to-fight-the-global-aids-epidemic
I kept waiting to hear how he should have done more.
Bush had both houses of congress and the UN believing his "lie". Not bad for the dumbest motherfucker ever born. Obama just lies to your face. Period. Obama wrote two autobiographies before he was fifty. Bush shared his grades, had business experience, including failure, headed a large state. Not bad for the dumbest motherfucker ever born.
Bush II - good man, bad president.
If I had to trust someone with my kids, or go into a business partnership, I'd trust Bush II, Clinton would be last among Presidents, and Obama would be down near the bottom.
But so what? Bush II gave us TARP, the Iraq war, run away spending, and tried, very, very hard to give us Amnesty.
He was McCain without the crazy.
Only those New York hothouse flower assholes give a flying fuck about coolness. How I'd love to see them do without electricity and running water for a week, just to watch their awed rediscovery of the relative importance of character and competence.
Those that didn't die of dysentery and tetanus, that is. A minority, I am sure.
They make it sound as thought the increase in aid to Africa was just because Bush got to hang out with U2.
Here's something about Bush that never gained traction, either. Ironically, it comes up in a New York Times article.
Expansion of Clinics Shapes Bush Legacy
Although the number of uninsured and the cost of coverage have ballooned under his watch, President Bush leaves office with a health care legacy in bricks and mortar: he has doubled federal financing for community health centers, enabling the creation or expansion of 1,297 clinics in medically underserved areas.
For those in poor urban neighborhoods and isolated rural areas, including Indian reservations, the clinics are often the only dependable providers of basic services like prenatal care, childhood immunizations, asthma treatments, cancer screenings and tests for sexually transmitted diseases.
As a crucial component of the health safety net, they are lauded as a cost-effective alternative to hospital emergency rooms, where the uninsured and underinsured often seek care.
History will assess both Bushes as truly good men and much better than average Presidents. It is only the shallowness of our academic and journalist classes that defers this recognition.
GWB was (and is) a good and decent man. He is who he was...People who no longer have a reason to vote against him begin to see him for who he is instead of who the media said he was.
W. can never rehabilitate his awful image. He looks and sounds like a crazy eccentric. A casual liar and an incompetent executive. History will not be kind.
Obama...COOL? Dude still uses a Blackberry.
I always thought that part of the appeal of the Bush family was that they lived in some serene world that was indifferent to hipness. They had their own values, some of them undoubtedly patrician, but those values included patriotism and honor..........It's kind of fascinating how the media has been able to successfully paint, albeit only temporarily, their own caricatures as the reality. The elder Bush was the youngest fighter pilot in the Navy, and he was portrayed as a nerd. Eisenhower, who successfully managed the campaign in Europe and conciliated the raging egos of Pattn, DeGaulle, and Montgomery, was shown to be an amiable doofus with a greater grasp of his golf club than of world affairs. Gerald Ford, an All Americsn athlete, was a klutz and another amiable simpleton. Reagan? Well, where can you begin. Harding? When a Republican President is good looking, it's all for show, and the only reason he got elected. So much different than Kennedy.......As a general rule, Republican Presidents tend to be upgraded with the passage of time. Dem presidents, with the exception of Truman, have generally taken a tumble.
Bush was not only a better man than most of his critics gave him credit for, he was a better man than most of his critics.
I spent years wondering when liberals would figure out that when they called a man who consistently out maneuvered them "stupid," they were saying more about themselves than they were about that man.
Time and circumstance have more to do with Bush's higher favorability than any "hipster cred." Maybe a lot of young people watching their health care coverage options getting worse are saying to themselves "well at least Bush didn't screw up my health plan".
Plus, it's harder to blame the guy for "war on terror" abuses when the new guy is continuing them, and blaming him for the economy makes less sense when five years after he left office it's still sluggish. Some people may remember that until 2008, the Bush economy was one where the unemployment rate averaged around 5%. Five years after Obama taking office, it hasn't dropped below 7% yet. Not that the economy is controlled by a president--but people do let that affect their opinions.
But also, ex-presidents always start to look better in hindsight because they're no longer in power, particularly at a time when things are worse. The Clinton era is looked at fondly, and fairly or not the years of stock market growth and low unemployment are credited to him. I predict if the next president manages to preside over a zombie apocalypse people will be talking about how much they miss the Obama years, when they had high education debts, no health care coverage and a part time job at the local coffee place at which they could use their Master's Degree.
Blogger Spiros Pappas said...
W. can never rehabilitate his awful image. He looks and sounds like a crazy eccentric. A casual liar and an incompetent executive. History will not be kind.
But not stupid?
Well. That's a start.
"Casual liar" Bush? I think you have your presidents mixed up. That would be Obama.
Give me an actual Bush lie, with and actual source, and I will give you five for Obama.
all the blame here seems to fall on the media instead of democrats, who, after all, had something to do with the vilification of GWB
Miss him yet?
Give me an actual Bush lie
"We don't torture" was a pretty big whopper.
And "nobody anticipated the breach of the levees" with either a knowing lie or an incredible display of ignorance. I'll let you decide which it was and which is worse.
Matthew Sablan said...
Miss him yet?
No.
And neither does my house or stock portfolio.
I am sure, however, that Osama bin Laden's family miss him and Cheney.
"...it's harder to blame the guy for "war on terror" abuses when the new guy is continuing them...."
Yes, and the new guy deserves all blame and condemnation for that, but Bush can be blamed for starting the so-called "war on terror" and making torture an official tool of American policy.
Both Bush and Obama belong in a courtroom being tried for war crimes.
Let's get realistic here. Bush is a bad president for the ages. The worst that can be said about Obama is that he is not good at software project management. It's an inconvenience at worst. An inconvenience that has been largely solved.
Would they ever mention Obama's fake accent and shortnin' ever'thin' to sound "folksy?"
Or how Hillary had an Arkansas accent that disappeared in the white house, and then of course, we know she "ain't no ways tired!"
I thought that Bush largely disappeared unlike Clinton.
"We don't torture."
Well, since the word torture got retroactively redefined after he said it, I don't see it as a lie. Do you know what the judge actually found to be torture? The waterboarding? No. It was making the prisoners stand continuously.
As for the levee comment. I don't really see that as a lie either, but he was mistaken and let this one go in the heat of the moment and it would have been better for him certainly, had he not said it. But, what the heck, here are ten Obama lies.
"If you like your plan"
"If you like your doctor"
"will save you $2500"
"Just some guy in the neighborhood."
"I never set a red line"
"I said Lybia was a terrorist attack the day after."
"Obamacare will not add one dime to the deficit"
"Mother denied health insurance"
"Won't raise taxes on families making less that $250,000."
"“We have the chance to tell all those corporate lobbyists that the days of them setting the agenda in Washington are over. … I don’t take a dime of their money, and when I am President, they won’t find a job in my White House.” "
"The worst that can be said about Obama is that he is not good at software project management. " - ARN
Whistle past the graveyard much? We can wait for events to unfold over the next couple of years and perhaps then, even you will be forced to concede that it is far worse than a software failure.
Many of the software problems, after all, came from political decisions having to do with withholding regulations needed by the developers until after the election.
"'We don't torture.'
"Well, since the word torture got retroactively redefined after he said it, I don't see it as a lie."
Lies aren't made into truth because the meaning of words are "retroactively redefined." Such destruction of language and meaning is a hallmark of authoritarians who render words meaningless precisely so they can deny the truth of their criminal acts.
I gave five Obama lies for that one. Let's move on, let's have another Bush lie.
By the way, your faith in the word "truth" is touching. How old are you, anyway?
Is it torture to fly people on an airplane into a building? Is it torture to send drones into civilian areas, undoubtedly crippling some bystanders for life and killing others after the intense pain of being burned to death? Is that torture? It is conceivable to me that at some future date, these could be defined as torture, since we have come so far already in our redefinition of the term.
But you have a unique insight into absolute truth and always know when somebody should be tried and convicted for errors in judgement during the incredibly messy job of leading a nation and being responsible for all decisions.
Let's see, Clinton authorized bombing and cruise missile strikes.
George H W Bush prosecuted a war against Iraq.
Jimmy Carter sat by fecklessly as the Soviet Union crushed self government in Afghanistan, turning it into the hell hole it remains to this day.
When you have great power, both its use and non use inevitably involves loss of life. There is no perfect path. If the US withdraws from the world, some other power will take its place that likely has no tradition of free speech and open criticism of its leaders, a power that thought that the events of Tienanmen Square were justified.
That is why your juvenile, even puerile, belief in perfect justice administered in some court for "war crimes" is so laughable.
will save you $2500
Actually, this is a lie. I am saving about $5400 next year.
Well, since the word torture got retroactively redefined after he said it
No it wasn't, look at the statutory definition of torture (either under U.S. law or the the convention against torture) or the practices that the U.S. government routinely called torture when carried out by other governments before Bush instituted similar practices and explain to me how what Bush authorized wasn't torture.
OK, fine, You are having your insurance paid for in part by my tax dollars. I don't think that that is what Obama was referring to, but Obama lies are plentiful and cheap. YOu don't buy that one? How about:
Obama's claim that the sequester wasn't his idea?
When did the health care negotiations go up on C-Span?
Obama, the "law professor" said it would be "unprecedented" if the Supreme Court overturned a law passed by Congress.
Here is one based on the retroactive redefinition of a word. Obama said that Obamacare wasn't a tax.
Said that surgeons amputate legs for the money.
That's five more. Let's have another from Bush.
Remember that the original claim was that Bush was a "casual liar."
BTW, the average cost of insurance has increased about $3K per family, your personal experience notwithstanding.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/health-premiums-3-065-obama-224300715.html
So now you guys owe me a Bush lie just to get even with my last five from Obama.
I will spot you a couple more:
"The NSA is not abusing its power"
"the foreign intelligence Surveillance court is transparent."
W is very socially intelligent nd has a very high IQ. The Dem Slander Machinery just twisted those traits and made him look silly for it...he was different from the average person after all.
Sounds like the media in denial.
"Why, he's changed! We know he is really a stuffy, conservative, hateful, bigot and moron, plus he's an idiot to boot! But now he's fooling everyone into thinking he's cool. How dare he!"
All the while Bush is just himself. Always has been.
And the media can't figure out why their hatred of all things Republican colors their view of him.
Take off the glasses, you'll see more clearly.
FF wrote:
"Actually, this is a lie. I am saving about $5400 next year."
Please show us your policy from last year and your policy this year.
Politicians are just people at the end of the day, and most people are decent and likable folks. Whether your a war criminal like Bush or pragmatic hypocrite like Obama, at the end of the day you probably wouldn't mind drinking a pint with either one of them.
According to Robert Cook, Obama is a war criminal too. I think the evidence is equally strong in both cases. It is just that Obama is a bigger liar.
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