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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPierce: Do I Applaud This Speech from George W. Bush?
I have the same ambivalence.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a13053454/george-w-bush-speech-trump/
Do I Applaud This Speech from George W. Bush?
I really don't know. We're on dangerous ground.
By Charles P. Pierce
Oct 19, 2017
I watched C-Plus Augustus give a speech on Thursday morning that went off like a bit of a grenade in the national dialogue. A very long portion of it obviously was an attack on the current occupant of the office George W. Bush once held, and it was very effective speech, and I agreed with every diphthong, and I have no idea how to feel about that.
Its hard to digest the phrase degraded by casual cruelty from a man on whose watch the United States formally became a nation that tortures people, and a man who willingly employed Karl Rove, and who accepted renomination in front of an audience wearing Purple Heart Band-Aids to mock John Kerrys service in Vietnam. Also, tooSwift Boats.
Voter cadging. Purge lists. Florida, 2000 and Ohio, 2004.
Warrantless wiretaps. Patriot Act. Military tribunals. Gitmo.
This speech is the sharpest point yet for those of us who have looked at big talkers like Bob Corker and Jeff Flake and Ben Sasse, who criticize the president* without actually opposing him on any significant issue. It is something of a dilemma for those of us who have been saying that the president* is not an aberration, but the inevitable result of conservative politics, and that the Republicans should not be allowed to pretend that hes not. What Bush did todaygive a speechis pretty much all he can do at this point. But, still, what elected him twice were the same politics that elected the incumbent. All the latter did was turn up the volume by being more shameless, more incompetent, and infinitely more of an asshat.
So, do I applaud? Do I marinate in my cynicism and remember that this proud defender of American democracy lied the country into a foreign policy debacle that is still ongoing, and that is now overseen by someone who couldnt find Iraq on a map of Iraq? Of all the strange places that the last election has taken this country, this has to be one of the strangest. You have to watch every step. The past is clutching your feet here like poison vines camouflaged as the comforting tendrils of citizenship.
Ilsa
(61,695 posts)the short term. We are fighting a common enemy. We can return to discussing the grosser details of W's failed presidency after we save the nation from trump, fascism, Putin, and neo-nazis.
malaise
(269,004 posts)What a grand time to redeem himself by those who choose to forget
babylonsister
(171,066 posts)history will be kinder to him.
malaise
(269,004 posts)GoCubsGo
(32,084 posts)A fucking war criminal is being a voice of reason. We are so screwed.
cwydro
(51,308 posts)The speech was great, and I agreed with it completely.
It scrambles my brain to know that.
Solly Mack
(90,767 posts)War criminal. Unitary executive. Constantly lying. Constantly eroding civil rights.
His crimes and abuses and his getting away with his crime and abuses only served to help Trump be where he is now.
That along with conservative politics over the last several decades. Bush was a symptom every bit as much as Trump is - and like any untreated disease, it only gets worse.
No dilemma, no ambivalence - Bush wrong. Trump wrong.
A murderer doesn't make a rapist look better in contrast.
still_one
(92,190 posts)is not enough
For example, if trump came out with a proposal you agreed with, it is perfectly compatible to agree with that proposal, but at the same time be skeptical about his sincerity
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Me too. I was thinking of the quarter million or more people dead, and many more with lives dreadfully damaged, because of him during this speech. The dead will always be dead, but we still need all the calls to our individual and national goodness that we can get.
robertpaulsen
(8,632 posts)Just listening to the sound of his voice brought back so many bad memories, many of which Pierce detailed.
Reading his speech, I agree. But I'm incapable of applauding. Having the worst presidency in our nation's history eclipsed by the next devolution of reich-wing knuckle-dragging is not something to applaud.
drmeow
(5,018 posts)OMG - they were only supposed to be dog whistles! You're not supposed to go public with it like Trump has. If we don't convince people we didn't mean it despite spending 40 - 50 years milking it (and if the country survives) the Republican party is going to get screwed by this. Damage control!!! Damage control!!!
If I believed any of tRumps supporters would care or if this might change Congress I'd applaud. Without that my reaction is too little, too late!