It’s rather poignant to watch the media love-fest over Obama’s ‘honymoon’ period – the fawning over Michelle’s pricey fashions, the breathless announcements of how wonderful everything will be as hope soars on clouds of euphoria – and wonder how the Bush presidency would have started if we’d been given a beginning like this, rather than the corrosive and unrelenting assault that consumed his presidency from Election Day 2000 onward. I don’t think there’s a better metaphor than the NY Daily News running front-page headlines about the Obamas bringing a dog to the White House while Bush’s dog Barney bites a Reuters reporter. Victor Davis Hanson: “When I hear a partisan insider like Paul Begala urging at the 11th hour that we now rally around lame-duck Bush in his last few days, I detect a sense of apprehension that no Democrats would wish conservatives to treat Obama as they did Bush for eight years.” H/T. Indeed, they expect that we won’t; they count on it. Ace, unsurprisingly, is having none of the pleas for unilateral unity:
Sorry, folks. No frakkin’ sale. We remember “Jesusland.” And stuff like this. And if you have a few hours, scroll through Malkin’s “Bush Derangement Syndrome” archive. We remember everything – being called racist warmongers, Christianist nutbags, racists, and all the rest of the vitriol you folks threw at us in your “AAAHHH CHIMPY MCBUSHITLER HALLIBURTON IS THE EVILEST” stage of political development.
You spent the last eight years engaged in a disgusting orgy of divisive political hatred and now you want to play nice and pretend we’re all united now? I for one am not going to treat President Obama the way you treated President Bush. That doesn’t mean, though, I’m going to just forgive and forget the fact that you’ve polluted the political landscape with your bile and patchouli-stanking spittle.
I’ve already said my own bit on how the Right should respond. We certainly should not have any illusions that a good deed today will ever be repaid. And we can all enjoy a laugh at the whiplash on the other side. Goldberg: “Alas, that [dissent is patriotic] standard only works for liberals. When conservatives dissent it’s called being ‘divisive.'” Lileks: “I’m off to the Mall to sell razor blades so people can scrape off their ‘Question Authority’ bumper stickers.”
Good for Ace. Republicans should treat Obama the way Democrats treated Bush in 2004. Oppose the Obama agenda with all their might (even if they have to acknowledge that they can’t stop everything). No honeymoon, no mandate, no deference.
Funny, Ace’s post looks a lot like your comment section the last few years.
“the Bush presidency would have started if we’d been given a beginning like this, rather than the corrosive and unrelenting assault that consumed his presidency from Election Day 2000 onward.”
Bush was largely given a pass for the first 6 months, aside from the tension when Florida was doing it’s Florida thing, and the aftermath. Sure, there were the calls of ‘selected not elected’, but nothing like the vitriol of 2003+. Most of that pre-failure anger was that a basic function of democracy – counting votes – was so poor. I’m not saying there was none – but he had a much freer hand than what you are saying here.
Even through the Hainan island incident, it was treated as a good show of statesmanship and compromise. He got another free pass after September 11th. Not the fringes for either, sure, but the truthers are just crazy.
“Republicans should treat Obama the way Democrats treated Bush in 2004. ”
By 2004, he had spent his capital, and decided to use a war to divide a country, and it was becoming apparent that we were involved in a war of choice with the most prominent reason being false.
Obama has done none of those things, and your logic in equating these is seriously flawed. Though, to be fair, it’s pretty much in line with the rest of the angry Right. Stay angry, be outraged, every day!
The true vitriol came after the drums for invading Iraq came. To fail to recognize such a simple fact is beyond sad, and to make a comparison before the president-elect has failed in a comparable way is as well. And that’s either failing on the international scale(in which we have problems), or economy(which still may take 2 years to work through, let alone more if GM/Chevy combine and continue to implode).
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/jan-june01/president_4-25.html
Personally, I could put down my axe if I were to hear some apologies for the crappy tactics the Left has been using these past years. To begin with, I think in order to ever come to terms with my new overlords, they would have to apologize for killing Social Security reform by telling seniors any changes would apply to them when nobody was presenting a plan that would have affected retirees or anybody near retirement.
So if anybody wants to start making amends, that would be a fine place to start. Just say you are sorry you lied and frightened a bunch of pathetic old people for political gain. And that it was a shameless thing to do and you will go forward doing good deds for the elderly every day to atone.
That’d be a heck of a start.
Bush was largely given a pass for the first 6 months, aside from the tension when Florida was doing it’s Florida thing, and the aftermath.
See, that’s not going to unite us as a country at all. Laughable rewriting of history was never mentioned as part of the Hopey Changey agenda.
Yeah, some of us lived through that period. We remember the bitterness and the bile – Bush got none of this fawning from the press. And once he was sworn in, we also remember them coming with hatchets at Ashcroft and Chavez, and the lunatic scare stories about arsenic in the drinking water, and Jim Jeffords throwing his big snit. About the only real peace Bush got was 2-3 weeks of bad press for the Clintons over the whole pardon flap.
Darn html! (yes, I’m blaming that instead of me)
You know the best part of this? To take a page from the right’s playbook, every time they oppose Obama, all we have to do is respond as they did when the shoe was on the other foot.
Drum roll, please — “You just want the terrorists to win!”
Magrooder – Yeah, that’ll work real well when Republicans criticize Obama for doing less to take on Islamic extremists, terrorists and rogue regimes.
The impulse to be juvenile sometimes needs to be run by the need to have some connection to reality.
Also, I love the reference to “Michelle’s pricey fashions.” I think The Onion has hacked your account and is posting under your name.
Crank, I really think you need to take a break for a few days. Your bitterness is overwhelming everything else you might have to say.
wonder how the Bush presidency would have started if we’d been given a beginning like this, rather than the corrosive and unrelenting assault that consumed his presidency from Election Day 2000 onward.
I was there with you. And my recollection is that from January 20, 2001 to September 10, 2001 he was treated just fine. Pretty easy sailing considering the very questionable circumstances under which he was declared President. Treated REALLY easy considering that less than half the voters chose him.
(Unlike Obama, who won a 6 or 7% advantage.)
Then from September 11, 2001 until at least New Year 2002 — when he started beating the War Drum — he had more than a fair shake. He had a free pass. He had carte blanche from the global press to do whatever he wanted.
Which is just what he did, all right.
We remember “Jesusland.”
Yeah, we do too. 2004. After he shat away all that capital he earned (through no effort of his) in 2001.
Crank (and friends): for your own sakes, take a political vacation. Heal your wounds, regroup, and bring your best game in 2 years, as I have no doubt you will. Like 1974/76, or 1932, or 2006, you LOST. And why did you lose?
Because the electorate rejected what you had to offer. You can twist and turn and spin all you want, but face facts. Bush is going down in history as one of the worst, if not the worst, Presidents in American history.
Obama may be bad. But the odds of him being Bush bad are very, very, very slim. One-in-forty three odds.
I have no doubt you’ll criticize Obama the next 4/8 years. I will too. I have grave doubts about his spending plans for instance. But these (very) sour grapes are pretty hard to swallow.
Crank,
These two numbers should really concern you over the last two years 55 & 11. But I guess all is well in GOP land. Take a break, develop a new battle plan that America is willing to get behind.
How soon before the Palin video tapes and memos start to leak?
Crank, for the love of God please stop this Limbaugh-esque “Big bad librul media” nonsense. Everyone always thinks the media is biased against them and it’s pathetic. Conservatives always blame the fawning liberal media, liberals love to talk about how Bush basically owned the media to silence dissent. Just stop. It says more about your biases than that of “the media” (that giant monolithic entity). Let me guess. Fox News is just telling it like it is, right?
Summary: it was his fault that some people demeaned Christ.
Duly noted.
As the saying goes, love means never having to say your sorry. Oh, and it’s your fault I was a jerk.
Oh, and he didn’t get bad press (and if he did, it was his fault).
I’m sensing a pattern.
Crank, I believe you have the highest percentage of trolls of any blog I visit. Anyway, I enjoy reading what you have to say. Keep chuckin’ the high hard ones and don’t let the trolls knock you out of the box.
Where’s that apology?
While you guys are no doubt whipping up an apology for your shameless dishonesty on SS reform, phrasing it to underscore your embarassing ovarian display, maybe you could work on something for General Betrayus.
That was pretty bad, you know? Especially since there isn’t one of you guys fit to shine his dog’s sack.
C’mon, let’s reconcile!
Ted, Fox is not a right-wing monolith, as the Left imagines. I don’t watch Fox all that much but they generally at least give you both sides of a story, but I don’t deny that overall its news coverage is mostly right-leaning and sometimes distinctly so. The opinion shows like O’Reilly and Hannity are what they are (O’Reilly’s a right-wing populist, Hannity’s a GOP shill). That said, there are also people like Shep Smith who are not in any sense conservative.
What the Left hates so about Fox is simply that it reports stories the rest of the media blacks out – the Left can’t stand the idea of not having a monopoly.
Yep Fox did report on that “Terorist fist bump”
Dubya’s biggest problem from day one has been his belief that in Washington you could, like in Texas, get cooperation and respect from the Democrats. You can’t–you can only defeat them. Fear is the only thing that gets respect from the Dems.
He’s going to be more gently dealt with by history, especially in comparison with Carter and Clinton. Give him twenty years or so, and he’ll have a Trumanesque comeback. Although it depends somewhat on whether Obama loses the War on Terror, for the starting pitcher can’t get a win even if he left the game in good shape for the reliever.
“Everyone always thinks the media is biased against them and it’s pathetic”.
“It says more about your biases than that of “the media” (that giant monolithic entity). Let me guess. Fox News is just telling it like it is, right?”
“Ted, Fox is not a right wing monolith as the left imagines.”
“What the Left so hates about Fox is simply that it reports stories the rest of the media blacks out – The Left can’t stand the idea of not having a monopoly”
Oh, Lord.
I can’t wait to see how long this honeymoon time period last. If anyone knows the elitist illuminati, they know they will be at here real soon.