TEAM DEF SPECIAL REPORT: THE BUSH AND I
Jan. 21st, 2009 08:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogBULLETIN: Due to overwhelming demand for crack political analysis on this blog, TFI National Affairs Sensei Lucky Bensonhurst has sent in the following missive from an undisclosed location:
re: Junior’s so-called legacy
Good evening, citizens.
I just got off the phone with Keith Olbermann, who wouldn’t stop calling me until I gave him a fucking comment on Junior Bush’s legacy. I shouted something about keeping Gitmo open long enough to send Bush’s entire crew there for a short five-year vacation during which they could be treated to Slayer, sleep-dep, waterboarding and all the additional fun they could stand short of organ failure, after which they would be shown the exit that just happens to lead to a room full of gay Spanish-speaking leopards – which seemed to satisfy him.
But as long as I’m dispensing justice, I thought I might as well give the fans something to ponder –
My instinct is to say that Junior's presidency was the kind of era that could only have gone better if he'd never given up whiskey and cocaine in the first place. Apart from that, there’s really little left to say about the Bush Dynasty that hasn’t already been said.
In fact,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pfarley has as good an assessment as yr likely to hear: the problem wasn’t Bush so much as the neocon think tanks that festered around him. If Bush was guilty of anything, it was letting these dingbats set up a boiler room in the Oval Office basement.
Listen:
What made 2005 the bleakest year of my life was the realization that I lived in a Post-Truth America. The Neo-Cons had created an environment where truth not only didn't matter, truth was outright impossible. If I don't like the facts, I'll invent my own facts was the apparent motto of the Bush White House and indeed the whole Conservative movement. And it *seemed* that the majority of Americans were okay with this. Could you, for example, have found ten people who agreed that WMDs were (or were not) discovered in Iraq? Could you have found ten people who agreed that Saddam Hussein was NOT responsible for the attacks of 9/11? When the administration itself was incapable of giving a straight answer to these questions, there was no way of establishing the truth or falsehood of any lunatic belief at that time. It was like watching a burglary in broad daylight, where none of the neighbors -- in fact, not even the homeowner being burgled -- was interested in calling the police.
Sounds about right. And he doesn’t even mention Fox News, which did its part to legitimize these kooks in ways that talk radio never really could.
What it all means for Junior’s legacy is anyone’s guess. There is talk that Junior will be judged to be the worst president in US history. Maybe. The worst presidents to date were a collection of crooks, nitwits, paranoids and underachievers. Where Bush fits into that crowd depends on how much of Junior’s accomplishments you think were due to malice, naivete, blind panic or general buffoonery.
As a professional Libra, I tend to believe it’s an alarming mix of all four. But yes, so what? Let us not split hairs over rankings. Unless you have money riding on it, it doesn’t really matter if Junior Bush was worse than Harding, Nixon, Buchanan and the others that tend to make the Worst Presidents list. Either way, historians will look back and see that Bush 43’s reign was a selective reality bubble of pre-emptive war, torture, economic collapse and general dumb madness – which is what happens when you believe that science books and condoms can be replaced with Bibles.
If that doesn’t get him on the list, then yr future is already doomed.
Bensonhurst out.
XXXXXXXX MESSAGE STARTS XXXXXXXXXXX
re: Junior’s so-called legacy
Good evening, citizens.
I just got off the phone with Keith Olbermann, who wouldn’t stop calling me until I gave him a fucking comment on Junior Bush’s legacy. I shouted something about keeping Gitmo open long enough to send Bush’s entire crew there for a short five-year vacation during which they could be treated to Slayer, sleep-dep, waterboarding and all the additional fun they could stand short of organ failure, after which they would be shown the exit that just happens to lead to a room full of gay Spanish-speaking leopards – which seemed to satisfy him.
But as long as I’m dispensing justice, I thought I might as well give the fans something to ponder –
My instinct is to say that Junior's presidency was the kind of era that could only have gone better if he'd never given up whiskey and cocaine in the first place. Apart from that, there’s really little left to say about the Bush Dynasty that hasn’t already been said.
In fact,
pfarley has as good an assessment as yr likely to hear: the problem wasn’t Bush so much as the neocon think tanks that festered around him. If Bush was guilty of anything, it was letting these dingbats set up a boiler room in the Oval Office basement.Listen:
What made 2005 the bleakest year of my life was the realization that I lived in a Post-Truth America. The Neo-Cons had created an environment where truth not only didn't matter, truth was outright impossible. If I don't like the facts, I'll invent my own facts was the apparent motto of the Bush White House and indeed the whole Conservative movement. And it *seemed* that the majority of Americans were okay with this. Could you, for example, have found ten people who agreed that WMDs were (or were not) discovered in Iraq? Could you have found ten people who agreed that Saddam Hussein was NOT responsible for the attacks of 9/11? When the administration itself was incapable of giving a straight answer to these questions, there was no way of establishing the truth or falsehood of any lunatic belief at that time. It was like watching a burglary in broad daylight, where none of the neighbors -- in fact, not even the homeowner being burgled -- was interested in calling the police.
Sounds about right. And he doesn’t even mention Fox News, which did its part to legitimize these kooks in ways that talk radio never really could.
What it all means for Junior’s legacy is anyone’s guess. There is talk that Junior will be judged to be the worst president in US history. Maybe. The worst presidents to date were a collection of crooks, nitwits, paranoids and underachievers. Where Bush fits into that crowd depends on how much of Junior’s accomplishments you think were due to malice, naivete, blind panic or general buffoonery.
As a professional Libra, I tend to believe it’s an alarming mix of all four. But yes, so what? Let us not split hairs over rankings. Unless you have money riding on it, it doesn’t really matter if Junior Bush was worse than Harding, Nixon, Buchanan and the others that tend to make the Worst Presidents list. Either way, historians will look back and see that Bush 43’s reign was a selective reality bubble of pre-emptive war, torture, economic collapse and general dumb madness – which is what happens when you believe that science books and condoms can be replaced with Bibles.
If that doesn’t get him on the list, then yr future is already doomed.
Bensonhurst out.
XXXXXXXX MESSAGE ENDS XXXXXXXXXXX
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2009-01-21 01:17 pm (UTC)