Dubya Can't Stomach Donnie
Former President George W. Bush said Monday that the American people deserve answers on the alleged connection between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia.
“I think we all need answers,” Bush said in an interview on NBC. “I'm not sure the right avenue to take. I am sure, though, that that question needs to be answered."
And:
Former President George W. Bush said Monday that the media is “indispensable to democracy,” a break from the position of his fellow Republican, President Donald Trump, who has called the press “the enemy of the American people.”
“I consider the media to be indispensable to democracy. That we need the media to hold people like me to account,” Bush told Matt Lauer, anchor of NBC’s “Today” show. “I mean, power can be very addictive and it can be corrosive, and it's important for the media to call to account people who abuse their power, whether it be here or elsewhere.”
...
Recalling his own presidency, when he was often the target of withering media critique, Bush said he devoted significant time to extolling the virtues of a free and independent press around the world, including to Russia’s strongman President Vladimir Putin. Trump has publicly lavished praise on the Russian president, but Bush said it’s important for the U.S. to set a strong example for leaders like Putin.
“One of the things I spent a lot time doing was trying to convince a person like Vladimir Putin, for example, to accept the notion of an independent press,” Bush said. “And it's kind of hard to, you know, tell others to have an independent, free press when we're not willing to have one ourselves.”
So, you like W now?
ReplyDeleteNot particularly, but he is better than the complete bozo in there now. Oops, shouldn't use the term bozo, it's unfair to clowns.
ReplyDeleteNJT, only in comparison to Trump.
ReplyDeleteI've been reading your blog so long, I remember when you called him the "Chimperor" in your blog masthead. It's sad that we long for the days of that knucklehead, in comparison to the fool we have in office at the moment.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the thing about the Shrubbery is that he was lazy and intellectually incurious, but he wasn't actively evil. He had Darth Cheney for that. He was capable of the casual evil of intellectually lazy people everywhere where they let other people's evil slide because they just don't care enough, but he didn't actively go out searching for evil shit to do. The other thing about the Shrubbery is that he seemed to have an intellectual suck field around him. People who'd been in government for decades and done a competent job, like Former Secretary of Defense Cheney and Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (his stint under the Shrubbery was his *second* stint as SecDef), suddenly lost 50 IQ points when they joined the Shrubbery's administration and then advocated doing stupid things where, at least initially, the Shrubbery went along with them because he was, well, too lazy to object. It was one of the most "WTF?" things I ever encountered.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, one of the few things I admired about GWB was the fact that he wasn't a bigot and, in the aftermath of 9/11, came out hard against discrimination against Muslims. He appeared at Muslim community centers, he was photographed in the Oval Office flanked by Muslim leaders, etc., all giving the message, "Muslim-Americans are Americans too and violence against them is not acceptable." He was pretty relentless on that point. Compare the Orange Racist Russian Stooge's message towards Muslims. Or towards Jews, for that matter -- dozens of Jewish community centers have received bomb threats since His Fraudulency Donald the Trump was elected by a minority of the people. And Deadbeat Donnie's response is.... [crickets].
So anyhow, it doesn't surprise me that the Shrubbery roused himself to object to Deadbeat Donnie going against one of the few things the Shrubbery did right in his regime. It does surprise me that he came to the defense of the press. On the other hand, maybe he's gotten a little wiser in the past 8 years. It's not as if that would have been a high bar to leap.
Yeah, I heartily agree with Bad Tux about W, but would like to dish a little snark about him calling the press "indispensable to democracy":
ReplyDeleteThe friendly reporter at the NYT (was that Miller, or a different one?) was if not indispensable, at least very helpful in selling the Iraq war when Cheney leaked them a story then cited that story on the Sunday shows as proof of the need to invade.
Hopefully they will be a little more alert this time.
-Doug in Oakland
Ah yes, Judith Miller. Thing is, war is good for the profits of the press, it gives them something to cover. I was not surprised to see the big press outlets being at least subtly pro-war. Being attacked by the President, on the other hand, is an existential threat that they aren't going to ignore. I think any tendency to go along with the administration was ended on Friday when the President pettily had major media excluded because they dared cover the Russia story.
ReplyDeleteI feel the last few/many(?) years, that the 'Press' has been worthless to the people. The Iraq war cheerleading comes to mind. The Nixon downfall perhaps being a high point.
ReplyDeleteI can only hope that when our current 'resident' disrespected the press so thoroughly that he "Awakened a Sleeping Giant", and Finally we can read about the stupid and downright evil stuff he does on something other than Buzzfeed and f/b.
Hope is dumb sometimes, I understand, but this is mine.
w3ski