Bush As Crank
Kevin Drum links back to an old idea of his:
I’ve long viewed George Bush as a temperamental conservative, the kind of guy you meet in a bar who slams down his drink and asks belligerently, “You know what this country needs?” and then proceeds to tell you.
Maybe this is just fuzzy and sentimental of me, but I think that guy in the bar actually quite earnestly cares about the country and what it needs. If through some twist of fate he became president, he might do a terrible job initially. But if that was the case, then as problems mounted I think he would either become chastened, take advantage of the president’s ability to get the counsel of better-informed people and start doing a better job, or else become overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task and abdicate in favor of someone better-suited to the job.
Bush has remained seriously jerky to the end, taunting the rest of the G-8 about his crappy environmental record, vetoing health care for poor children, utterly unrepentant in his goodbye interviews, delaying needed fiscal stimulus and plunging the world into depression, fighting tenaciously to keep American troops in Iraq in the teeth of opposition from the American and Iraqi publics, etc.
In other words, I get the analogy to the drunk in the bar. But ultimately I think it’s unfair to people who like to rant and rave in bars. This is how Bush really is, year after year.
UPDATE: See also Brian Beutler on Bush the nice guy versus Bush the jerk.
59 Responses to “Bush As Crank”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
January 13th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
Agreed. Maybe people like Kevin Drum simply can’t bring themselves to believe that our country has been led by someone with an antisocial personality for 8 years.
I’ve read accounts of Bush’s earlier life, and no one who knows him well has ever heard him say anything along the lines of “You know what this country needs?”
January 14th, 2009 at 12:04 am
There’s an old Monty Python sketch of “The Bells of St. Mary’s” played on the “mouse organ,” in which Terry Jones comes on and starts hammering mice who squeal out the tune. Somebody screams, “My God, stop him!” and Jones is dragged off, but as he’s dragged, he keeps pounding the mice.
That is GW Bush. He will keep working to destroy this country until his very last moments in office.
January 14th, 2009 at 12:20 am
He’s the kind of guy I’d like to have a bar fight with and I’ve never had a bar fight but I did get sucker punched outside a bar once.
You know it strikes me Bush is exactly the kind of guy that may have gotten into plenty of fist fights in his day. Needling people and being a cocky asshole define his personality. Throw in he was a very serious drinker for 25 years and you’ve got black eyes by the dozens. How come we never heard of all those fights. The only one ever mentioned is when he took a swing at his old man.
January 14th, 2009 at 12:22 am
What’s Bush got that Bloggo doesn’t? Well other than countless billions behind him. They aren’t that different yet Bloggo is widely considered insane.
January 14th, 2009 at 12:34 am
European opinion of Bush jumped up a lot with that comment (up from not very high levels, as you all surely know). It’s fun to see at least one Western leader giving the environment cranks the respect they deserve and especially fun to see it together with an appropriate insult to the we’re-so-much-better-than-America crowd. I’ve been really finding it hard to hate Bush after that, particularily since Obama isn’t turning out to be so liberal after all.
January 14th, 2009 at 12:37 am
Was Bush a dry drunk or a just plain sociopath (i.e. he’d be the same even if he never drank)? Don’t know, don’t care.
Truth be told, he became POTUS not because of some momentary lapse on the part of the electorate, but because one of the two major political parties (or more accurately, the wealthy interests that control it) decided he’d make a convenient front, and not only nominated him but also dragged him clumsily over the finish line when he lost in 2000.
Without a GOP eager to help him (and a Democratic party willing to enable him), Bush’s malevolence would never have mattered.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:04 am
You know, I’m really not so sure that Bush has ever been in what you or I would call a real ‘fight’. As in a brutal physical confrontation with someone who could truly, irreparably fuck him up. In fact, I really doubt it. He has always had the pseudo-cocky ’swagger’ of an peacock-esque asshole who has managed to avoid receiving the ass-whipping he has long deserved.
Now I’m sure he’s started shit with people far physically or socially weaker than him- probably prep school nerd types. But Bush actually backing up that blueblooded entitlement in a real, honest-to-god, ‘broken nose, pissing blood, requiring multiple stiches’ fight? No fucking way.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:27 am
Ah who cares. The Crawford Coward, the Texas Teabagger is gone from the scene. He did his damage, he pissed away America’s chances. The rest of the world didn’t elect him. America, for better or worse, let him play act as President.
Enjoy your trillion dollar deficit, enjoy your depression, say goodbye to American cars and American jobs. The future’s going to belong to someone else, in the end, Americans got the President who reflected the country: Ignorant, belligerent, cowardly, and lazy.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:02 am
What’s Bush got that Bloggo doesn’t? Well other than countless billions behind him. They aren’t that different yet Bloggo is widely considered insane.
That’s a good spot, and one I noted last week. The cablenewsers seem to be going hog-wild on Blago in a weird way, and it comes across almost like a rebound reaction to the end of an eight-year abusive relationship.
There may well be a class/local element to it, as well: Blago is clearly a creature of Chicago politics, while Bush has been someone who the Village gossips felt comfortable around in a masochistic way, regardless of the Texas schtick.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:13 am
A little problem with this comparison; the President is actually stone-cold sober, having sworn off alcohol a long time ago.
January 14th, 2009 at 6:25 am
Do the words Pisco Sour mean anything to you?
January 14th, 2009 at 6:40 am
“Delaying needed Stimulus”
News flash Matt: Not everyone agrees that “stimulus” spending works.
“Health care for poor children”
The new SChip covers people up to age 28. It’s not for poor children; it’s a trojan for national health care. Which again, not everyone agrees with.
What this boils down to is Matt’s core philosphy: “Be reasonable: do it my way”.
January 14th, 2009 at 7:31 am
I’ve always found Bush Jr. to be a complete f***ing cretin, but somehow he doesn’t disgust me anywhere near as much as the morons who fell on their knees praising him as Ronald Reagan II / Jesus / Warhammergod when his post 9/11 approval ratings were in the clouds.
January 14th, 2009 at 7:31 am
Right, but then, you guys lost the last 2 elections, so, shut up.
January 14th, 2009 at 8:34 am
A story told by former HOuse majority leader Dick Armey sums Bush up pretty well for me. It originally appeared in “The Rove Presidency,” by Joshua Green, in September 2007’s Atlantic Monthly. In the article, Armey said:
For all the years he was president,” Armey told me, “Bill Clinton and I had a little thing we’d do where every time I went to the White House, I would take the little name tag they give you and pass it to the president, who, without saying a word, would sign and date it. Bill Clinton and I didn’t like each other. He said I was his least-favorite member of Congress. But he knew that when I left his office, the first schoolkid I came across would be given that card, and some kid who had come to Washington with his mama would go home with the president’s autograph. I think Clinton thought it was a nice thing to do for some kid, and he was happy to do it.” Armey said that when he went to his first meeting in the White House with President Bush, he explained the tradition with Clinton and asked the president if he would care to continue it. “Bush refused to sign the card. Rove, who was sitting across the table, said, ‘It would probably wind up on eBay,’” Armey continued.
January 14th, 2009 at 8:42 am
Re: It’s fun to see at least one Western leader giving the environment cranks the respect they deserve and especially fun to see it together with an appropriate insult to the we’re-so-much-better-than-America crowd.
Jaakeli,
Great, so you’d rather see the rainforests cut down, the fisheries driven to extinction, and the climate shot to hell just to make a cheap political point. Very mature of you. It’s true that Finland (you’re a Finn right?) might benefit a bit from global warming, but most of the rest of the world will assuredly be much worse off.
January 14th, 2009 at 8:51 am
Not everyone agrees that “stimulus” spending works.
When Greg Mankiw is unironically citing Kevin “Dow 36,000″ Hassett as a stimulus opponent, I think it proves that everyone who’s both informed and honest thinks stimulus is needed. Citing Kevin “Dow 36,000″ Hassett is the work of a desperate man who can’t find any decent allies.
January 14th, 2009 at 9:15 am
El Cid: So if you expect people who disagree to shut up on the grounds of having lost an election, then why didn’t your side shut up from 2000 – 2008?
I’ll tell you why: the system doesn’t work that way. We don’t have a parliamentary system where the majority gets to have nearly everything its own way.
So much for the idea of “dissent being the highest form of patriotism”. That only applies when the left isn’t governing, I guess.
January 14th, 2009 at 9:27 am
James Robertson, the American people had a chance to decide whether they wanted to support stimulus or not, and they supported it. So calm down a bit and see how it works before throwing a fit about the fact that the president is doing what we voted for him to do. If your argument were so convincing, it would have won. We put up with Bush’s stupid tax schemes, too. In any case, you had a bunch of poor character judgment by thinking that Bush was in some way qualified to be president and that his policies were good ones, so even moreso we have even less reason to think your opinions are in any way worth addressing or talking about. You had several chances to show good judgment, but you decided that Bush was your kind of person. It is now clear that people like yourself have extremely, extremely poor judgment, and iut’s why many of us regard you as either jokes or as genuinely dangerous.
In any case, I don’t know what it was, but I always saw Bush as a genuinely mean person. I didn’t understand what people saw in him. Perhaps because I came from the same academic background as Bush that I was familiar with his sort and immediately saw past the facade of friendliness that many of them use. People like James and Myles, being both naive and dedicated toadies were convinced that he was a “good guy” and were fooled.
C. Brian Smith is in all likelihood typical of many people taken in by Bush. Yes, Bush was clearly a jerk, and ignoramus, and stood firmly against everything that thinking people are raised to believe is important. However, if people like Smith just restrain themselves, ingratiate themselves with Bush, accept the fart jokes and stupid nicknames, they get a chance to hang out in the white house and enjoy some movies. And that was Bush’s life: everyone wanted to suck up to him in exchange for beers and the chance to laugh at whomever Bush was mocking at the time, and Bush knew he’d never get social or physical pushback for being a jerk… he lived life without consequences.
January 14th, 2009 at 9:36 am
Great, so you’d rather see the rainforests cut down,
Yeah, I’m sure evil George Bush has done much to cut down the North American rainforests.
I’m not exactly convinced when white liberals claim to hold the only solutions to Third World problems. Finns, of course, don’t have problems not destroying our taiga even without environuts. Hell, I’m a redneck and I’ve personally planted more trees than the country’s Greens combined.
the fisheries driven to extinction,
Looking from Finland, either fishing faces certain extinction at the hands of EU envirocranks (Finland & Sweden only barely managed to block the Baltic fishing ban, Iceland and Norway stay out because the EU wants to kill fishing) or we *might* lose it due to overfishing. Easy call for me.
and the climate shot to hell just to make a cheap political point.
Look who’s talking. In reality, none of it has anything to do with the environment. Who says that the environment improves if we destroy fishing as a profession? It’s not about the environment, it’s about class warfare. Liberals absolutely hate men who do physical work and all the environmental regulation business is simply a plot by bitter pencil pushers to destroy redneck and working class jobs.
January 14th, 2009 at 9:39 am
I’m not really sure why everyone feels the need to analyze the motivations of George W. Bush – aren’t we just feeding into his obessions of self-importance? If a wild animal breaks into your house, trashes it, craps on your dinner table, and leaves, you don’t really spend any time trying to analyze its motivation, do you? No – you clean up and figure out how it got in so you can make sure it never gets in again.
January 14th, 2009 at 9:52 am
I actually frequent a semi-rural Texas beer dive populated with the types alluded to in the post. While some of them might be dumber than a sack full of rocks and prone to busting-up the furniture at times, they bear no resemblance to George. He is first and foremost a prototypical Frat Boy, one of those sneering, over-privileged jerks who you know will inherit Daddy’s business and run it into the ground. Unfortunately for us, we all happened to be stockholders.
January 14th, 2009 at 10:34 am
but I am not inclined to let the American people (myself included) completely off the hook.
Nor I. Though enough of them managed to see through the blizzard of Al Gore-hate coming from the DC press corps that Bush didn’t get a popular vote plurality in 2000.
One benefit of the Bush years has been the rise of the left blogosphere, and the realization by our side that we can never be complacent. Obama will be a much stronger president than Gore could have been, due to the rejuvenation of the liberal base and the building of progressive political infrastructure.
January 14th, 2009 at 11:11 am
“It’s fun to see at least one Western leader giving the environment cranks the respect they deserve and especially fun to see it together with an appropriate insult to the we’re-so-much-better-than-America crowd.”
You’ve got a pretty lame idea of fun, my friend.
January 14th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Tyro,
So if we had a choice and made it, then after November 2006, the left had no rationale for opposing the war. Or any other Bush Policy.
Since I know you don’t believe that, please stop telling anyone who disagrees with the stimulus idea to sit down and shut up.
Although, it does verify my notions of which side of the aisle really wants to shut down dissent…
January 14th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Attempts at analyzing the character of politicians is pointless when it is done by political ideologues. The norm is to assign a positive character assessment to politicians who share their views and negative assessments towards politicians they disagree with. It is rare to hear a progressive state that a powerful and current conservative leader has a positive character. Conservatives are considerably worse on this count, when it comes to evaluating the character of progressives. This is especially true for a highly prominent politician like President Bush.
January 14th, 2009 at 11:29 am
James, in my defense, I do admit that under the political circumstances of 2002-2003, being against the war was a marginal one. I simply believe in holding people to the consequences of their beliefs afterwards, and I don’t deny that lots of people supported the war. Similarly, it’s pretty rich of you to claim that the case for the stimulus isn’t a good one… it is a good one, and it is one that people support. And furthermore, you are not exactly any sort of authority on the matter that should be taken seriously because you have incredibly poor judgment. Your arguments have been tried, tested, and listened to. The failed with great aplomb. Now either repent from the error of your ways, or accept your position of a radical, extremist crank pushing far-out, discredited ideas. I don’t take the claims of Marxists advocating for the abolishment of private property, either… nor am I going to take your arguments seriously. You are advocating for a discredited, destructive ideology.
Not everyone agrees with the stimulus, no… but those who do disagree with it are, like you, the same people who hooked themselves to the train of as destructive a president as Bush- and those people are people with hooribly poor policy and character judgments. Stop trying to justify your errors to the rest of us by claiming that your voice needs to be listened to. It had its day, and it’s time you paid the consequences for your poor judgment.
January 14th, 2009 at 11:40 am
So Tyro – Obama has brought in Geithner, who is foursquare behind the way the current bailout has been implemented – heck, he’s been the NYC lead on it.
I don’t think anyone believes that’s worked well, pretty much across the spectrum. What we’re about to see from Obama is more of the same, plus an extra trillion or so of debt. That debt is going to be spent on junk projects for the most part – existing earmark plans in the various states will be where that money gets buried.
Even if it were all going to good stuff though, someone has to buy the $1T of treasury debt that will be sold to cover it (I’m not convinced that will work out well – China is already slowing their purchases of US debt). Not to mention that we’ll have to pay it back in the future – which will mean one of two things (possibly both):
– higher taxes
– 1970’s levels (maybe worse) inflation
Neither would be good for a weak economy, and inflation hurts the lower paid people hard. But hey – a bunch of union guys laying asphalt will be happy, so it’s all good, right?
January 14th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
If you mean prep school and selective private college, yeah, same here. But Bush is genuine; I can tell because I know what those facades of induced friendliness look and sound like (and heck even I can do them). You gotta remember, Bush wasn’t exactly well-liked at Yale; there were strong indications that people treated him with condescension. And it continues; when he was at Yale commencement in 2001, a number of (obviously very disrespectful and foolish) Yale graduates turned their chair 180 degrees to have their backs face Bush. And this was before Iraq and all that, way because Bush had actually pursued any bad policies.
January 14th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
“You know it strikes me Bush is exactly the kind of guy that may have gotten into plenty of fist fights in his day.”
Waingro is correct. Guys who get into fist fights inevitably end up getting their own ass kicked at least once or twice. The experience doesn’t neccessarily make you a better person, but you do learn a thing or two from it. Bush has clearly never learned those sorts of lessons.
Mike
January 14th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
And by the way, that’s why I have absolutely no respect for those college students protesting Bush; they were doing it way back even when they had no justification to, and doing so in an extremely disrespectful way even back then. So, nothing new. Screw them all.
January 14th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Bush isn’t a king and those students weren’t his subjects. This may be hard for a royalist to grasp.
You’re well on your way to membership in the mandarin class, Myles. You’ve already got the ass-kissing, obsequious attitude, instinctive deference to power and total cluelessness about the consequences of the social arrangement you so desire.
January 14th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Never did I imply that the students should not be allowed to be foolish and disrespectful; I stated that I have no respect and cannot fathom any justification for who choose to act in such a foolish and disrespectful manner.
And I find it hilarious that Americans are so obsessed about Bush not being stupid. Only an insecure intellectual-class American could feel such a way; the higher classes of Brits and Australians are completely at ease with intellect or lack thereof.
January 14th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
HOw is the gravity on your planet?
January 14th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Yeah! All he had done was stolen the presidency! ! !! So what? Get over it! ! !! ! !
January 14th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Oooh, good one I’m sure nothing done in the US has anything to do with deforestation in Central America. Like, for instance, beef consumption, hint hint.
There is only one explanation for that: progressives are delusional. John McCain is a great guy! Other than cheating on his crippled wife then dumping her for someone younger and richer. Sarah Palin has tremendous character! Okay, she abused her office to fire someone and her daughter is married to a meth-dealing family, but those are minor trifles. Dick Cheney is a great guy! etc.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Oooh, good one I’m sure nothing done in the US has anything to do with deforestation in Central America. Like, for instance, beef consumption, hint hint.
I don’t see how George Bush can be blamed for American dietary habits. Hell, I’d say that liberals like Al Gore and Michael Moore should take much more blame for excessive beef consumption.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Ah, the old “stole the election” canard. Let’s see how it should have played out:
– Florida sends a disputed set of electors (the legislature was about to name a slate of Bush electors before the Supreme Court stepped in)
The would have been disputed by at least one Democrat, I’m sure. If the electors could not be settled on (and, if left to the legislative branch, they would not have been), then the election would have been thrown to the House.
In 2000, Republicans controlled the House. Bush would have been elected by the House under the rules laid out in the Constitution.
Gore knew all of that, which is why he chose to go the legal route. Under the rules of the political system, he had no shot. As it played out, he lost anyway. Had things been left alone (as, IMHO, they should have been) – then Bush would have won anyway.
However – and this is crucial, IMHO – instead of the blame falling on an unrepresentative branch (the Court), it would have fallen on elected representatives (up again for election in 2002). I’m fairly certain that a loss in the House would have energized Democrats for the 2002 mid-terms.
Which means that ultimately, you should blame Gore and his utter lack of regard for the system for the way it played out. Had he been willing to let the rules work, things probably would have gone very differently from 2002 forward.
January 14th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
But Bush is genuine;
A genuine asshole, yes, and a mean person. You mean he’s genuinely friendly and a nice guy? There’s no evidence of that. He’s mean, snippy, and lashes out at those who disagree. I don’t see what you mean by claiming he’s “genuine” if you mean he’s actually friendly and a good person: the evidence indicates otherwise.
January 14th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
He’s a spoiled brat who’s never had to answer for his failures.
Of course he’s cocky.
January 14th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
European opinion of Bush jumped up a lot with that comment
I don’t think jaakkeli speaks for “European” opinion on this.
January 14th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Nice story about Dick Armey & Clinton. From first to last Bush has been classless–he said no to the nametag thing because he could, just like he did to Obama’s request for early move-in at Blair House.
January 16th, 2009 at 2:18 am
Bush never got into a fight in his life.
At Yale he was a cheerleader, no way he was going to go out for the varsity and get his ass busted by a linebacker nor was he going to put his head doiwn to get the extra yard. Just rah-rah-rah the guys doing the work on the 50-yard line.
Just like Iraq.
And when his generation’s war was on he split and hid in the toilet.
Just a loud-mouth fratasshole with a big daddy.
March 1st, 2009 at 5:41 pm
cialis
Excellent site. It was pleasant to me.
March 2nd, 2009 at 4:30 am
levitraI want to say – thank you for this!
March 11th, 2009 at 4:16 am
Incredible site!
March 12th, 2009 at 10:50 pm
Great site. Good info
March 14th, 2009 at 4:58 am
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right
xanax
March 17th, 2009 at 2:19 am
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right
tramadol
March 22nd, 2009 at 5:53 am
tramadol
Great site. Good info
March 23rd, 2009 at 4:21 am
viagra
Incredible site!
April 2nd, 2009 at 4:54 am
It is the coolest site,keep so!
buy cheap viagra
April 3rd, 2009 at 4:00 am
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right
cheap brand pfizer viagra
April 9th, 2009 at 4:45 am
I want to say – thank you for this! viagra