Despite calls for him and his father to speak out against unfair attacks, I think it is a bit too late for that. The time to have done so was over three years ago. However the lesson to be learned is that there is a time for self restraint and a time to speak out. If W. would speak out now, all that would do would be to shift the focus from Obama onto him (which is what the media and Obama want to do). Bush’s refusal to speak out disheartened those of us who voted for him and allowed Obama and the left to control the narrative of the Bush years – as a result 68% of the public blames Bush more than they do Obama for the economic mess we are in.
by Steve McCann
Excessive civility in the face of a national crisis is tantamount to indifference. The Bush family dynasty exemplifies the patrician attitude of holding oneself above the fray after fulfilling one’s pre-ordained obligation to society. This may have been fine in the halcyon days of the past, when America’s future seemed limitless and those answering to the call of duty were for the most part honorable people. With Barack Obama at the helm, that is no longer the case.
Never in American history has the nation been saddled with such an unethical and ideologically rigid administration, whose ultimate goal is to tear apart the fabric of society and to recast the United States into the socialist model originally formulated in Italy of the 1920s and ’30s.
The guiding principle of this system is socialism with a capitalistic veneer — thus leaving an appearance of a free market while centralized government agencies plan all economic and societal activity as well as control all aspects of manufacturing, commerce, banking, health care, energy, and agriculture. This same statist government, in order to maintain high employment levels and public support of those in power, initiates massive public-works programs and spending and makes certain that a vast majority of the citizenry is dependent on government largess, all financed by steep taxes, excessive borrowing, and fiat money-creation.
[.......]
If re-elected, Barack Obama will have nearly free rein to complete this transformation, as the Congress and the Courts will be powerless to stop him. Whether by granting de facto legal status to illegal aliens or through the EPA enacting a green energy agenda not approved by Congress, he has shown his willingness to use previously granted or usurped executive power to force his agenda on the American people.
By the end of his second term, the United States will record a national debt in excess of $21 trillion ($10.6 trillion at the end of 2008) and unfunded liabilities approaching $200 trillion. Interest payments alone will absorb nearly 35% of all income tax revenues. The economy will be in tatters, as higher taxes and a further avalanche of regulations and mandates will strangle business and wealth formation. A societal upheaval will be inevitable as the Obama administration will have succeeded in rupturing racial, ethnic and economic fault lines. The American standard of living will be in a free-fall, and the prospect of turning around a nation that will have become a second-rate military and economic power will be exceedingly dim.
Yet many in the American patrician class refuse to acknowledge who Barack Obama is, what damage he has wrought, and the dire future the nation faces if he is re-elected. Their general consensus is that he is a likeable fellow in over his head, with the best of intentions, albeit misguided. Therefore, excessive criticism or “incivility” is uncalled for when discussing the faults and foibles of Barack Obama. It is apparently an ironclad tenet that the intentions of anyone who becomes the president of the United States are above reproach unless he or she is a conservative Republican or proven corrupt in a formal impeachment process.
The leading proponent of this approach is the Bush family. It is admirable that George H.W. Bush and his son George W. Bush have proclaimed their respect for the office of president of the United States and the tradition of not publically criticizing any current occupant. Yet Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton did not and do not hesitate to inject public criticism of any Republican incumbent or past president. Further, the former governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, while muted in his criticism of Obama, is nonetheless willing to castigate conservative Republicans for being, in his mind, overly divisive and unwilling to compromise with someone bent on transforming the nation.
The current occupant of the White House, as he is incapable of assuming any responsibility, on a near-daily basis lays all the nation’s current economic problems at the feet of his predecessor. That tactic is also reprised by his sycophants in the media and the useful idiots in the Democratic Party. This drumbeat has been so constant and unrelenting that it has through the force of sheer repetition been permanently imbedded in the nation’s psyche so that three and a half years into Obama’s term, 68% of Americans blame Bush more than Obama for the state of the economy.
[.....]
Combined with the now-infamous decision made during his two terms in office to not publicly defend himself or forcefully answer his demagogic critics, George W. Bush has cast himself into the role of a convenient scapegoat. His many substantive accomplishments during those years pale in the public mind, in comparison to the fabricated failures that have been heaped upon his administration. As with all past presidents, there were mistakes made during his term in office; however, they are insignificant next to the deliberately egregious tactics and errors of the Obama administration.
In another time and place, it would suffice to say that history will, in the end, vindicate the Bush presidency. But that assumes that the United States would still be the pre-eminent economic and military power on the planet capable of consistently improving the standard of living for its people. If not, then those who will write the history of America will attach much of the blame to George W. Bush not only for the ascendancy of Barack Obama, but also for his re-election, and to the patrician ruling class for their unwillingness to forcefully rebut Obama’s lies and demagoguery, and inability to point out his lack of character and integrity.
The Bush family’s patriotism and love of country cannot be questioned. However, duty calls, and they can no longer stand by and allow Barack Obama to win re-election by convincing the citizenry that he bears no responsibility for the crisis facing the country. It is time for George W. Bush to put aside some of that civility and vigorously defend his record while pointing out the dire future facing the American people.
Read the rest - Civility and the legacy of George Bush
Tags: Steve McCann
American Thinker? Seriously? Speranza, you can do a lot better than that if you actually try. There is some actual SERIOUS criticism to be made about the president. Why do you reference an article from a lunatic fringe nut-job site?
Bush can certainly help. He’d have to admit mistakes. Mistakes he could tie to Obama like “suspending free market to save free market” which Obama did and continues to do whole sale although he doesn’t want to “save” it. Highlight their similarities and point out that since Obama is in the way for a Democrat Clinton, the most Clintonesque possibility is Romney
@ waldensianspirit:
I agree with Speranza here. Bush has passed the time when he could have had a positive impact. Now it is better that he remain quiet and let the focus remain on Obama. Anything Bush says now would just be a distraction.
@ Iron Fist:
It is never past time while breathing. The strategy and truth though aren’t convenient for him but it would be good for the country.
Definitely not saying he should stump for Romney directly. Better to point out Obama is Bush cubed while Romney is coming through the Republican candidacy because we have a two party system and that was the only opening. And that Romney is similar to Clinton( what’s in people’s minds; not the hornery Clinton) in regard to economy and good years returning to the US
Good Mornin All…and Happy Juneteenth!!
O/T Any news when the ruling on embalm-a-care will be made?
@ theoutsider:
You could do better as well. Like disputing something that is said maybe?
Or is that too much to ask? Slamming the source is much easier, I know.
@ Iron Fist:
It’s better if Bush just goes away. This has to be about Romney vs. Obama.
@ Kafir:
Like a typical Lefty all they know how to do is smear their opponents. They can’t debate the merits.
@ Rodan:
Evidently!
@ citizen_q:
Between now and the 25th of this month is one rumour I heard.
@ Rodan:
But what’s really weird is Speranza is actually disagreeing with the article, LOL! So I’m not sure of the outsider’s point. That’s why I was trying to get the gripes out.
Because under Obama we European love the U.S.A. so much, don’t we ? /////////
G20 summit: Barroso blames eurozone crisis on US banks
Everything has changed under Obama. Not.
@ PaladinPhil:
I’m on pins and needles over here!
@ Guggi:
How dare you Europeans question the wisdom of our divine Pharaoh. You are all heretics!
/////
@ Kafir:
Yeah, that’s what is weird. I guess he didn’t read Speranza’s point.
OT……
On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger stood on the balcony of Ashton Villa in Galveston, Texas, and read a special order from President Abraham Lincoln:
The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer. The freedmen are advised to remain at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts, and they will not be supported in idleness, either there or elsewhere
well what ever happened to that idea?
Well the political correct FBI has called the “work place” bombing over in Plano Tx. out as “possible terrorism” and the guy as “asian”.
How the hell did a once great country fall so far into shit wipe territory.
“Ya I know commie known nothing Democrats and Rats”.
Open borders to terrorist, ms13 drug dealers, and wild voter fraud.
Without borders and courage there is no possibility for U.S. to remain free.
@ taxfreekiller:
Was it Michael Savage who coined the phrase “Borders, Language, Culture”? Обама is doing his damnedest to destroy all three.
“Why am I getting my “”spidie”"” leg tingles.” cj
OT, but does anyone have a link to the “piss Mary” scandal ?
Think of the Democrat Party as off earth “The Alien” and “The Democrat Underground”, Bill Ayers the first generation of spawn and NAACP, LaRaza, Occupy U.S. as the nuke’d gene code second generation of death to freedom spiders.
The Bush family “ant’” Texans, never were never will be.
East coast elite RINO’s just to get elected an into power.
The conservatives lost the Republican Party to they and their kind and it is they and their type we fight for control of the Republican Party now. This struggle is just as important as the struggle aginst the commie Democrats. As now one thing of importance have the commie Democrats got done without RINO votes in the house and senate.
like that sorry to say
As “not” one thing,,,,@ taxfreekiller:
Guggi wrote:
Thanks, found it.
Isn’t this obsession with the previous President dangerously unprecedented? I can’t think of any previous administration that’s been so maligned from both sides. I say “dangerous” because demonizing the previous Executive seems exceedingly unhealthy for the Republic.
I believe Bush trusted “history” to judge him. Little did he know that “history” would be written by people on the Left and the Right who would see him as a useful scapegoat on which to heap the country’s ills. After the 2006 mid-term debacle, Republicans dropped Bush like bad habit and told him to not let the door hit him in the ass on the way out. He became the Democrats’ ultimate fascist and the Republicans’ second coming of LBJ -- the worst of all possible worlds.
Bush shouldn’t have to “defend himself”; that should come from others but I’ve seen very few people doing that. I think it’s in both side’s best interests to accept no responsibility for anything post 1/21/01. Republicans are harder on their own than are their opponents and that’s just an unfortunate rule of the game. There ain’t no crying in baseball and there surely ain’t no crying in politics -- both Bushes’ refusal to “defend” is testament to their acceptance of that basic rule. Think of them what you will, neither of them will ever step up in their own defense. It’s just the way they are.
theoutsider wrote:
**** ***, and I mean that disrespectfully. Next time I will scour The Nation or any other Stalinist rag you recommend.
Iron Fist wrote:
Passed his prime and passed his time.
!
theoutsider wrote:
“Lunatic fringe nut-job site”. Wait, what? Where did that come from?
There was a good reason for that.
gulfloafer wrote:
From an Obama ******* licker.
Kafir wrote:
thoutsider is just a leftwing troll. I have no patience or time to waste with people like that. He probably thinks that Keith Olbermann is another Edward R. Murrow and that Thomas Friedman is a serious thinker.
@ taxfreekiller:
Our politicians have been bought out by Islamic money. That’s your answer. Read the book, the Arab lobby. It will make sense.
@ gulfloafer:
Little Green Footballs!
I don not think that W was a great president, but he was not
a bad one. Nobody had to teach him how to be a good guy either.
Jeb Bush? A RINO cretin, he seems to have no criticism of BHO
who dailyy maligns brother.
No, to Jeb the problem is those Conservatives who don’t lay down
for Obama. He seems to say something stupid every other day.
@ RIX:
Jeb is another Meghan McCain
Why do these women spend so much time thinking about their vaginas? I think it’s a job that no self-respecting man will do!
waldensianspirit wrote:
That’s a really good analogy. Both insist that they
are Republicans, but you know that they are not, not
really.
@ MacDuff:
Yup, no one wants to go near them.
@ Speranza:
.
Or that Charles Johnson influences events!
@ MacDuff:
Sounds like they have talking vaginas. Will their vaginas be telling jokes? Could be funnier than achmed the dead terrorist.
/
MacDuff wrote:
Hey Mac. Several years ago I heard this Eve Ensler interviewed
on the radio.
She had evolved beyond the Vagina Monolouges. She was shilling
a new book about her stomach. She seriously said that her
stomach talks to her! Of course one of the things that she
heard is “Man bad, woman good”
She is profoudly crazed.
Rodan wrote:
Ah, the gift that keeps on giving …
RIX wrote:
As I’ve said before, satirists should be suing these people for plagiarism.
Good information on Denis McDonough, Obama’s foreign policy adviser, boss of the NSC as of now. This guy former thug for Tom Daschle, bug crawler for The Center for American Progress, buddy of Dan Restrepo, and the one who sent Kevin O’Reilly into “the no talk zone in Iraq” to cover up O’Reilly talking “Fast and Furious” to the ATF in Az. and the fact Obama was in that loop as well as Denis and others.
http://www.sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/
long read but worth it….
My read of this guy “grave danger” to freedom and truth.
@ MacDuff:
Funnier tha an SNL skit, but lots of things are.
and he is a “global warming” kook to boot. Not that he belives a word of this CO2 fraud,,, it is just a means to grab total power.@ taxfreekiller:
@ RIX:
Both of them want to purge the Republican Party of those icky conservatives, and turn us into a Center Left party. They want the Republican Party to be Democrat lite, not a strong right Wing party. Fuck em.
Dems in the Senate are now saying that Obama plans
to plow ahead with ObamaCare even if the Court strikes
down the mandate.
That makes me think that Elena Kagen tipped off the
White House & it is not good for them. We shall see.
Iron Fist wrote:
Which is why the Tea Party has to take over the Republican
Party. They are decent & principaled people
@ Iron Fist:
The GOP already has enough Liberals, they want more? Geesh.
Heh
EXCLUSIVE: Secret Service agents partied like rock stars on Obamas’ Vineyard Vacation
Does anyone recall when George Bush vacationed in Martha’s Vineyard?
@ RIX:
I think the Tea Party should have started their own Party back in 09. Uniting with the Republicans was huge mistake. Its too late and both are tied at the hip, but I think it was a lost opportunity to create a real Center-Right Party.
waldensianspirit wrote:
He looks like Porky Pig.
@ MacDuff:
I know Poppy did, but not W.
RIX wrote:
Not if we control both Houses.
@ Speranza:
He will do so my executive order. I’m waiting for him to pull a Robespierre and declare himself a god.
Rodan wrote:
No, that would’ve helped Obama.
It would’ve helped if the Tea Party did not allow any politician to appoint themselves as “leader”.
Rodan wrote:
There are limits to that.
@ Speranza:
Not really. In 09, the GOP was going the way of the Whigs, so if the Tea Party had started a new Party, the GOP would be on life support right now. Plus the GOP would have gone even more to the Left thus attracting Moderate Liberals. The Result would be The New Tea Party getting the Center-Right (40-45%), The GOP the Center-Left (20%) and The Democrats the Far Left (35%).
But what’s done is done and there’s no use of crying over spilled milk.
@ Speranza:
This man has none.
Every time there’s a failing Democrat administration, just like clockwork, the same tired argument is made.
Gawd, they’re painfully predictable.
@ MacDuff:
Didn’t they say that during the Carter years?
@ Rodan:
They Tea Party may be forced into forming a new
political party at some time.
But that would have split the vote in 2010 & Obama
would still have the House. A split vote in 2012 &
Obama waltzes in.
I would like to see them pull a coup d’etat on the
Republicans and take over the Party.
@ Speranza:
Not really. You have to be able to override a veto to block an EO, and what do you do if the President ignores the law? We see on immigration where that gets us. No, if we don’t remove him Obama will be a virtual dictator in his second term.
Rodan wrote:
Yeah, back then it was “the job’s too big”. They never seem to understand that their men are too small.
Iron Fist wrote:
There ain’t nothing virtual about his ultimate goal….
@ Iron Fist:
I’m not exaggerating. I think Obama will pull a Robespierre and claim to be a god/light worker who has descended from a higher spiritual plane to create a new utopia.
@ MacDuff:
Obama should never have come close to the Presidency.
@ RIX:
That would be ideal. It is a lot harder to start a new Party than Rodan thinks. The last time it was successfully done was when Lincoln did it, and that required the Civil war in to actually succeed.
@ Speranza:
.
Obama has shown a disregard for the Constitution &
no problem ruling by fiat.
He has to be defeated
Rodan wrote:
We seem to be electing the opposite from the previous president; Bush was the anti-Clinton, Obama is the anti-Bush. Make of that what you will, but Romney is really the anti-Obama.
Rodan wrote:
Actually, I think you are exaggerating.
@ Iron Fist:
How about if the day come Conservatives take over the GOP a name change?
RIX wrote:
You get no argument from me on that.
@ Iron Fist:
Yup starting a new party & actually winning elections any
time soon is like finding a needle in a needle stack.
Take over the OParty & bring it back to Reagan.
Oh, & bar Jeb Bush from any open bar event. He only
gets cash bars
Iron Fist wrote:
Plus, the election of 1860 was a 4-way contest. There were 2 Democrat candidates (Breckenridge and Douglas) and John Bell represented the Constitutional Union party.
Lincoln only got just under 40% of the popular vote.
@ MacDuff:
Nothing surprises me with this guy. Obama is a crazy egomaniac. He really is scary.
@ Rodan:
He doesn’t have the speaking presence to pull that off for a large enough audience without sounding like a complete idiot, IMHO.
He’ll have others do it for him (like everything else in his life.)
The Chicago Tribune had a front page story below the fold
this morning.
It was something like “Is Arab Spring chilled in Egypt”
They are commenting on the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood
victory? Uh, Uh, they are upset that the Military is trying
to restrian the MB.
They have devolved to an NY Times wannabe.
Rodan wrote:
I hear ya. I don’t think he’s beyond it, but I do think we’re beyond letting such a thing happen.
@ RIX:
There’s a story on the Fox News site today about how one of Obama’s former Harvard Law professors is calling for his defeat.
Of course, you have to get a couple paragraphs in to realize that he’s against him for being too conservative…
@ MacDuff:
Did you ever read about how Robespierre declared himself a god? There was some stage set and he came down some stairs dressed as a Gerco-Roman God.
@ lobo91:
I did watch that Fox vid with Obamas Old Law prof.
The guy is an eltist snob.
@ Rodan:
It would not bother me, but I don’t think it likely. Just as the Leftists did not change the name of the Democrat party when they took over. I think we’ll stay with tradition.
Speranza wrote:
So, I can sign you up?
RIX wrote:
Well I sent $50 to Romney -- that’s a start.
@ Speranza:
You’re in, that’s a good start.
@ MacDuff:
Heh. It would be so much entertainment for a large group of men to attend this “event” and solemnly chant “penis, penis, penis” every time she utters the word “vagina”. Paging Bunk!
Rodan wrote:
He never declared himself God (he was not a Caligula). His opponents once said “The bastard is not content to be boss, now he has to be God as well” after they witnessed his behavior at “The Festival of the Supreme Being” but they did not mean it literally.
Rodan wrote:
Yes, and then a very short time latter he had his own date with the guillotine and lost his head over that statement.
@ Alberta Oil Peon:
Which is why I always wanted Oregon State to play
South Carolina in a bowl game.
Think about it.
RIX wrote:
South Carolina would, no doubt, have a penetrating offense…….
@ RIX:
Gamecocks and Beavers?
Rodan wrote:
That would send Chris Matthews into orgasmic ecstasy.
MacDuff wrote:
Like master like man.
RIX wrote:
Gee, thanks for that mental image…
@ RIX:
@ MacDuff:
@ Alberta Oil Peon:
ROFLMAIAO!
Alberta Oil Peon wrote:
MacDuff wrote:
I’m here for ya.
@ MacDuff:
Exactly, the possibilities are endless.
@ Alberta Oil Peon:
Oh that would be perfect! LOL!
@ RIX:
!
bwahahahahaha!
!
RIX wrote:
I know there’s a circumcision joke in there, somewhere, but I’m just too lazy to make it.
RIX wrote:
She is also a Serb-basher from way back.