Posted on 02/23/2009 3:01:31 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
And if that annoys anyone, that’s too bad.
Seems increasingly like all the “Fascist Bush” caterwauling was the usual fake, dishonest theater meant as a means to an end - the end being to destroy the hated “election stealer” and his legacy, and not much more.
But you know, for someone who “did everything wrong,” his policies suddenly seem wise and right to some surprising people.
It’s easy to campaign and criticize. It’s much more difficult to know that if you don’t keep the country safe, you don’t get re-elected.
And if you don’t get re-elected, good heavens! How can you continue and complete the coup?
Even with restrictions to free speech and the press watching your back as much as possible, and destroying all possible rivals, it will be very hard for them to spin it if people start saying, “at least Bush kept us safe, not like Obama.”
So, the FISA stays, Gitmo (despite all the righteous-sounding rhetoric) is not so bad, after all. Terrorist-suspected detainees do not enjoy constitutional rights, after all. Patriot Act, stays. Whether succeeding presidents will abuse the powers Bush put in place to protect us is rather less a question than a surety. Not an “if” but a “when.” And that is troubling, oh yes.
Of course, if we’re destroyed from within, economically, socially and in every other way, well…that won’t be seen as “not keeping us safe,” will it? That will just be seen as “Obama’s brave economic unilateralism being unable save the country from the disastrous global Bush recession.”
But at least we had the courage to elect an “elegant man” as president.
And of course, a Democrat could never, ever have anything to do with economic disaster. And Bush and his administration never congress about Fannie and Freddie and this sort of stuff, or asked for some revisions to a ruinous policy.
You believe that, right? Of course you do.
Up is down. War is Peace. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Such disorientation.
Everything “unacceptable” about the last 8 years is now “acceptable.” Except, of course, the “wiser countries” led by tyrants and despots are our new friends, and our old friends are either being sacrificed or left to precede us to implosion.
Oh, and human rights - an issue for which Bush’s commitment was never much discussed in his own country Ah, well, these days human rights are less important than money, honey
The truth is, that’s what Bush was all about: Human freedom. All the cries of “fascist” and fantasies of assassination only emphasized his respect for free speech, and served as misdirection from the fact that human rights and and freedom were what Bush was all about. Freedom for you and for me, and for Africans dying of AIDS and malaria, for hopeful Georgians and Eastern Europeans, for Iraqis and for the Cedar States. Freedom.
He should have steamrolled the congress into allowing domestic drilling; the job creation and energy sovereignty would have been our salvation in the current climate, but he was a president who actually believed in working within the system. I mean, if Obama could declare things closed with a flick of the wrist, couldn’t Bush have done the reverse, and put teeth to it - particularly back when his approval ratings were high?
Oh, right, I forgot. If Bush had done that - or, for instance, tried to put the census under his own control - he’d have been called an “imperialist”. I keep forgetting the double standards.
Still, for all of his faults, and there are no perfect presidents, I miss Bush.
Bush was all for freedom. American-style freedom, writ large upon the whole world. Free speech. Free markets. Freedom to build and create. Freedom to explore (yes, really). Freedom to pursue the American dream. Freedom from scolding. Freedom from fear. Freedom from want. Freedom of speech. Freedom of Worship. Freedom of Assembly.
The last American president did not get pissy and thin-skinned, calling out members of the press while they engaged in their non-stop lambaste.
The last American president was in fact, despite all the narratives, cried “freeeeeedom!”
Freedom and fear are at war. The advance of human freedom, the great achievement of our time and the great hope of every time, now depends on us. — G.W. Bush, September 20, 2001
I could not agree more. I really like the Anchoress.
Personally, I think the “Bush = Hitler” nonsense spouted by the Left was tactical cover. By spewing it so loudly and for so long, the Left essentially desensitised the American people to over the top political rhetoric. Then, when leftists next get into power (as they did in 2006 and 2008), and actually started to put into practice true to life fascist policies, any complaints we make about can then be just dismissed as “sour grapes” from Republicans who are “just trying to destroy Obama” the same way the Left did to Bush - and thereby be ignored by the bulk of the people at large.
The (for now) last American President.
As time passes more of this will prove to be truthful. The problem is that we have been bombarded with eight years of “Bush is an idiot” and the mantra has become a fact to the uninformed.
More and more people are losing jobs; jobs were easy to come by under Bush. As time goes by more and more people will get a big dose of reality. Companies are going to get much more selective in who they hire. This will impact the lower income workers the most. They will only buy the “Its Bush’s fault” line for so long. Then they will turn on zero. Many of zero’s voters are going to wish they never voted for him.
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