Matthew Yglesias » Bush: Compassion is Good

Jan 11th, 2009 at 9:25 pm

Bush: Compassion is Good

President Bush called for a “compassionate” Republican Party and warned against the GOP becoming “anti-immigrant” in one of his last interviews as president, defending his vision of the party, which has become unpopular among some Republicans.

No word yet on how launching unprovoked wars and torturing people fit into the compassion frame.

UPDATE: I forgot about the time Bush showed compassion by vetoing health care for poor children.

Comments
58

Filed under: Bush Legacy, iraq,

58 Responses to “Bush: Compassion is Good”

Point Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Considering how much insult as the English language allows, it is remarkable that words could fail me in describing such an entity as George W Bush.

Just nine more days, just nine more days…
Richard Steven Hack Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
In other words, he goes out spouting the same lies he spouted coming in.

Class act.
calipygian Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
“…launching unprovoked wars that MY approved of at the time and torturing people…”

Fixed.
tomemos Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
Calipygian, does launching an unprovoked war become more or less compassionate depending on whether Matt Yglesias supported it at the time?
Rich in PA Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
Matt, cute doesn’t win arguments. An unprovoked war to overthrow a murderous regime might legitimately be seen as an act of compassion. I say that as someone who supported the war in 2002-2003 solely on that basis–which makes me a Blairite, I suppose.
Farid Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
Have compassion, kill more Iraqis and support the genocidal regime of Israel.

What a fucktard!
NattyB Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
Is that true. MY supported the Iraq war. WTF. Are there any links to this, and the subsequent mea culpa. I’m guessing, his reasons explaining how he could’ve been so blind were, in order of reasoning: 1. emotional impact of being a new yorker; 2. WMD-posed a threat (how exactly, I don’t know); 3. humanitarian reasons.

It’s like, if MY supported this shit storm, then he’s no better than all the liberal war supporters who he criticizes all day –friedman unit– when he drank the kool-aid just the same.
Why oh why Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
“Torturing people” to death, Matt. People always seem to forget that last part.

An unprovoked war to overthrow a murderous regime might legitimately be seen as an act of compassion.

Did Saddam even kill as many Iraqis as US troops did?
AssForAHeadDotCom Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Because MattY is a hack, he won’t acknowledge that the photograph demonstrates the only way to deal with the threat posed by immigrants to our precious bodily fluids. I explain more here..
wiley Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
He’s still talking. Blah, blah, buzzword, blah, blah, blah, buzzword…

TURN IT OFF!!!
Why oh why Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Lots of people supported the war initially. Pretty much “everybody” in politics and media. That is why I respect people I usually disagree with like Ron Paul, Chris Matthews or Pat Buchanan. They were right when it mattered.

But it is good enough to say now that this war was a mistake, like Matt has realized. Nobody’s perfect.
NattyB Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
I didn’t support the way, because, well, ya know, it sounded like a fucking crazy idea. And also, they were all about the WMD’s and yet, at the time, they wouldn’t let the inspectors finish the job, which seemed odd to me as a logic wielding rational person. If it’s about WMDs, shouldn’t we let the inspectors finish their job?

I guess all those, A = B, except when C = my harvard education didn’t teach me shit expect how to sound really pretentious, logic examples that MY uses were for posterity sake.

I will concede that Heads in the Sands shows that MY can learn, and even teach others.
NattyB Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
way = war, woops
Jake in Milwaukee Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
Don’t forget the two thousand mile Wall of Compassion along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Skeptic Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
No, Richard, it merely makes you stupid. You had some idea that bombing the hell out of a country and destroying its functioning government and infrastructure was a compassionate act? Stupid. Profoundly stupid. Morally stupid.

I’m sorry, but that’s the most compassionate way I can put it. Anyone, including Matt, who supported the war at the start was an ignorant, morally compromised, shortsighted, arrogant fool.

Fools fall into two categories: Those who sooner or later realize they were fools. And those who never learn a damned thing. Choose yours.
K. F. Tucker Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Leave George Bush, Junior alone!!!!
Ed Marshall Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
I say that as someone who supported the war in 2002-2003 solely on that basis–which makes me a Blairite, I suppose.</i?

It makes you a fucking idiot. You didn’t manage to be wrong about something silly like culture war kabuki either, you managed to be stupid about something that created more refugees and corpses than can be counted. I hope you learned something anyway, if nothing else maybe humility and erring on the side of caution when lives are on the line.
24AheadDotCom Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
I gotta wonder, how low is MattY’s IQ? He seems to be mentally incapable of figuring things out.

1. Both MattY and Bush supported the Iraq War, the thing that MattY is supposedly complaining about.

2. Both MattY and Bush support enriching the corrupt Mexicangovernment and helping them screw their people by sending those people north rather than the only natural and logical solution of making that government fix their own country.

3. Both MattY and Bush support crooked businesses in effect paying off corrupt politicians.

4. Both MattY and Bush support the massive social costs of allowing massive illegal activity.

Maybe they should get a room.
nolaboyd Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
As someone who opposed the war very strongly from start (and predicted Iran’s strengthened hand at the time for bonus points!), let me say that Skeptic and Natty are assholes. Just because you were right this time doesn’t make you fucking geniuses, so get over yourselves.
Richard Steven Hack Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000

ONE BILLION TWO HUNDRED MILLION or 20% of the world’s population.

They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:

1988 – Najib Mahfooz

Peace:

1978 – Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat
1994 – Yaser Arafat:
1990 – Elias James Corey
1999 – Ahmed Zewai

Economics: (zero)

Physics: (zero)

Medicine:
1960 – Peter Brian Medawar
1998 – Ferid Mourad

TOTAL: 7 SEVEN

______________________________________________________________________________

The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000 FOURTEEN MILLION

Or about 0.02% of the world’s population.

They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:

1910 – Paul Heyse
1927 – Henri Bergson
1958 – Boris Pasternak
1966 – Shmuel Yosef Agnon
1966 – Nelly Sachs
1976 – Saul Bellow
1978 – Isaac Bashevis Singer
1981 – Elias Canetti
1987 – Joseph Brodsky
1991 – Nadine Gordimer World

Peace:

1911 – Alfred Fried
1911 – Tobias Michael Carel Asser
1968 – Rene Cassin
1973 – Henry Kissinger
1978 – Menachem Begin
1986 – Elie Wiesel
1! 994 – Shimon Peres
1994 – Yitzhak Rabin

Physics:

1905 – Adolph Von Baeyer
1906 – Henri Moissan
1907 – Albert Abraham Michelson
1908 – Gabriel Lippmann
1910 – Otto Wallach
1915 – Richard Willstaetter
1918 – Fritz Haber
1921 – Albert Einstein
1922 – Niels Bohr
1925 – James Franck
1925 – Gustav Hertz
1943 – Gustav Stern
1943 – George Charles de Hevesy
1944 – Isidor Issac Rabi
1952 – Felix Bloch
1954 – Max Born
1958 – Igor Tamm
1959 – Emilio Segre
1960 – Donald A. Glaser
1961 – Robert Hofstadter
1961 – Melvin Calvin
1962 – Lev Davidovich Landau
1962 – Max Ferdinand Perutz
1965 – Richard Phillips Feynman
1965 – Julian Schwinger
1969 – Murray Gell-Mann
1971 – Dennis Gabor
1972 – William Howard Stein
1973 – Brian David Josephson
1975 – Benjamin Mottleson
1976 – Bu! rton Richter
1977 – Ilya Prigogine
1978 – Arno Allan Penzias
1978 – Peter L Kapitza
1979 – Stephen Weinberg
1979 – Sheldon Glashow
1979 – Herbert Charle S Brown
1980 – Paul Berg
1980 – Walter Gilbert
1981 – Roald Hoffmann
1982 – Aaron Klug
1985 – Albert A. Hauptman
1985 – Jerome Karle
1986 – Dudley R. Herschbach
1988 – Robert Huber
1988 – Leon Lederman
1988 – Melvin Schwartz
1988 – Jack Steinberger
1989 – Sidney Altman
1990 – Jerome Friedman
1992 – Rudolph Marcus
1995 – Martin Perl
2000 – Alan J. Heeger

Economics:

1970 – Paul Anthony Samuelson
1971 – Simon Kuznets
1972 – Kenneth Joseph Arrow
1975 – Leonid Kantorovich
1976 – Milton Friedman
1978 – Herbert A. Simon
1980 – Lawrence Robert Klein
1985 – Franco Modigliani
1987 – Robert M. Solow
1990 – Harry Markowitz
1990 – Merton Miller
1992 – Gary Becker
1993 – Robert Fogel

Medicine:

1908 ! – Eli e Metchnikoff
1908 – Paul Erlich
1914 – Robert Barany
1922 – Otto Meyerhof
1930 – Karl Landsteiner
1931 – Otto Warburg
1936 – Otto Loewi
1944 – Joseph Erlanger
1944 – Herbert Spencer Gasser
1945 – Ernst Boris Chain
1946 – Hermann Joseph Muller
1950 – Tadeus Reichstein
1952 – Selman Abra ham Waksman
1953 – Hans Krebs
1953 – Fritz Albert Lipmann
1958 – Joshua Lederberg
1959 – Arthur Kornberg
1964 – Konrad Bloch
1965 – Francois Jacob
1965 – Andre Lwoff
1967 – George Wald
1968 – Marshall W. Nirenberg
1969 – Salvador Luria
1970 – Julius Axelrod
1970 – Sir Bernard Katz
1972 – Gerald Maurice Edelman
1975 – Howard Martin Temin
1976 – Baruch S. Blumberg
1977 – Roselyn Sussman Yalow
1978 – Daniel Nathans
1980 – Baruj Benacerraf
1984 – Cesar Milstein
1985 – Michael Stuart Brown
1985 – Joseph L. Goldstein
1986 – Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini]
1988 – Gertrude Elion
198! 9 – H arold Varmus
1991 – Erwin Neher
1991 – Bert Sakmann
1993 – Richard J. Roberts
1993 – Phillip Sharp
1994 – Alfred Gilman
1995 – Edward B. Lewis

TOTAL: ONE HUNDRED & TWENTY NINE !

The Jews are not promoting brain washing the children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non Muslims!

The Jews don’t hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics or blow themselves up in German restaurants. There is not a single Jew that has destroyed a church. There is not a single Jew that protests by killing people.

The Jews don’t traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the Infidels.

Perhaps the world’s Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems.

Regardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians and Arab neighbors, even if you believe there is more culpability on Israel ’s part, the following two sentences really say it all:

‘If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel’ -Benjamin Netanyahu
Skeptic Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
How many martians have won the Nobel Prize? Zero.

This means that either the Nobel Prize committee is prejudiced against extraterrestrials.

Or it means that Martian culture and biology is so fundamentally bankrupt that those green bastards deserve nothing but our ray guns.

Earth Uber Alles!!!

Fer christ sakes, SLC, would it kill you to try and be constructive once in a while, and not repost every bit of spam that fits your prejudices?
Notorious P.A.T. Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 12:06 am
Both MattY and Bush supported the Iraq War, the thing that MattY is supposedly complaining about.

Shame on you, Matt Yglesias, for launching the invasion of Iraq!

An unprovoked war to overthrow a murderous regime might legitimately be seen as an act of compassion.

Yes, we invaded Iraq to overthrow an oppressive government and replace it with freedom. Or, we invaded to stop Iraq’s many many WMDs from being used, and were going to install Ahmed Chalabi as a pro-American strongman with his own private army. One or the other.
Zaid Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 12:07 am
”
‘If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel’ -Benjamin Netanyahu”

If Netanyahu was any more of a racist that fruitcake would be writing on Stormfront.
Notorious P.A.T. Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 12:09 am
The Jews are not promoting brain washing the children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non Muslims!

Yes, there is such a very, very, very real moral distinction between killing 20 innocent people with a suicide bomb and killing 20 innocent people with a bomb dropped from a plane.
Farid Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 12:16 am
‘If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel’ -Benjamin Netanyahu

PURE UTTER BULLCRAP!

Military resistance is the only options. You don’t negotiate with thugs in Tel Aviv, you launch longer range missile to hit them. Preferably downtown Tel Aviv.

Time to fuck ‘em up.
Jeremy Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 12:50 am
“Military resistance is the only options. You don’t negotiate with thugs in Tel Aviv, you launch longer range missile to hit them. Preferably downtown Tel Aviv.

Time to fuck ‘em up.”

Yes, because the only thing that will stop the violence is more violence. That sounds like a rational Bush would come up with. You’re a fool.
Farid Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 12:56 am
Jeremy

You premise is true ONLY IF Israel was interested in peace. They are not. If they were, they wouldn’t be starting this in the first place.

You are not one of those gullible ones who think Hamas started this? or are you?
blah Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 12:57 am
Peace:

1911 – Alfred Fried
1911 – Tobias Michael Carel Asser
1968 – Rene Cassin
1973 – Henry Kissinger [sic]
1978 – Menachem Begin
1986 – Elie Wiesel
1994 – Shimon Peres
1994 – Yitzhak Rabin
Farid Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 1:09 am
Israel has never been interested in genuine peace. Come to the negotiation table and accept whatever I propose isn’t negotiation, it’s a way to promote their 60 years propaganda.

Like I said, military resistance is the only option to one state solution goal.
Fred Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 1:22 am
“I forgot about the time Bush showed compassion by vetoing health care for poor children.”

This raises the bar on Matt’s usual partisan hackery. Medicaid gives free health care to poor children, as Matt knows. Since our entitlement costs are already on an unsustainable cost trajectory, Bush vetoed an expansion of S-Chip to middle class parents, who make enough money to afford health insurance for their kids. The Dems’ poster children in this debate had parents who would rather work part time and spend their money on cars and real estate than on their own kids’ health insurance. As a society, we’ve all implicitly agreed to give the poor a free ride, but we can’t afford to give that same free ride to the middle class. Now that the Dems are in charge, expect them to learn that lessen. Particularly a year or two from now when the rest of the world balks about buying our debt to finance Obama’s unprecidented $2 trillion deficits.
hum Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 2:16 am
I’m doubting whether that’s really Hack at #20.
Not as spiteful as Fred Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 2:22 am
Shorter Fred: If your household is earning under $25k a year, sell your kids for meat.
Not as bloodthirsty as SLC Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 2:26 am
I’m doubting whether that’s really Hack at #20.

Given that Hack always has a website link, it’s a namestealer: possibly SLC after a session of wanking off to genocide porn.
Jon F Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 2:34 am
SLC is an old fucking loser who’s been out of his med for quite some time.

He wraps an Israeli flag around his dick and jerks off to the bloody images of dead Palestinian.

Pro Israelis = Genocide loving low IQ people = Joe the Plumber.

FUCK.THEM.
Viva Intifada Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 2:40 am
Zionism = Nazim

Israelis are creating a Palestinian holocaust. And what the United Fucking States does? give them right to self-defense.

Self defense my ass. Fuck Israel fuck the United States of America and CERTAINLY fuck Barak Motherfucking Obama.

’nuff said.
Kim Elliot Jr Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 3:35 am
Hamas should target Israeli officials. No Israel official should ever feel safe traveling outside of Israel. For the folks who think that this is not possible should read the following quote:

“If anything in this life is certain, if history has taught us anything, it is that you can kill anyone. “

Time for Hamas to get serious about criminals. Eliminate them all.
Jeremy Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 4:01 am
Farid, do you know what a cycle of violence is? Hamas and Israel both have blood on their hands, the extremists who use applaud whenever a militant’s house is bombed or a rocket hits a house are the problem here. The moderates who want peace are unable to make any headway because everytime something happens blood is demanded.

I don’t know how to solve this intractable problem. But I do know that cheerleading the violence isn’t the answer.

“You premise is true ONLY IF Israel was interested in peace. They are not. If they were, they wouldn’t be starting this in the first place.”

This is a dumb statement. My premise is true no matter what. Do you think Israel is going to wake up one day and say, “Y’know, those first 100 suicide bombers, they weren’t so bad. But that last one, that’s just too much.” No, that won’t happen. What could happen is that international pressure, led by Europe and the US, could force Israel to resolve this conflict.

But I don’t see that happening anytime soon. So for now, I’m taking a ‘pox on both your houses’ stance and lament the innocents on both sides whose lives are lost.
Farid Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 4:19 am
Jeremy

The international community hasn’t done shit in the last 60 years. UN has tried to pass resolutions to condemn Israel. It has been vetoed 148 times by the US.

You have to inflict a real pain so these motherfucker can get it.
jpeeps Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 6:10 am
With all that brain power, Nobel prize winners, laureates etc to draw on, it’s even less excusable that the Israeli Govt is following such dim, shit-for-brains policies, almost guaranteed to put off any peace settlement and further exacerbate terrorism for decades to come. Rarely has Gandhi’s observation that an “eye for an eye” makes the whole world blind been better illustrated. Perhaps Farid’s point that Israel is not interested in peace is not so easily dismissed.
YT Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 7:40 am
I pity the f***wad. He had to take on things that were very much beyond his COMPETENCE level. Or is that the mask he wears for eveyone to see? Hhmm…
Farid Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 7:49 am
Speaking of Nobel prize winners, scientist etc. What’s with the new line of AIPAC financed narrative that Jews did these many accomplishments and non Jews or arabs didn’t do well comparatively?

FIRST WHAT’S THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ISRAEL’S GENOCIDE?

Secondly, didn’t Nazi Germany made the same argument to exterminate all Jews?

This is the Palestinian holocaust. If you really do believe that Israel is like you are nothing more than a lying murderous scumbag.
Farid Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 7:54 am
In WWII, Jews were ostracized, were called names and harassed and eventually 6 millions of them were killed.

Is Israeli government following the efficient model of Nazis to exterminate Palestinians?

Where the fuck is the outcry? shouldn’t these thugs be brought to court be tried for war crimes and crime against humanity?

Or AIPAC has already bought up/bullied/terrorized the folks in International Criminal Court.
SLC Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 8:19 am
I have to plead innocent here. I am not the faux Ricard Steven Hack. In fact, I have never posted a comment on this blog or any other blog using anything but SLC.

With regards to the posting of the faux Hack, I commented on a previous thread relative to it. As I pointed out, I suspect that, in the absence of a source for the information, that many of the folks named were probably not Jewish and that the faux Hack had left out a number of Jewish physicists in his/her list. He/she also left out chemists, leading one to think that he/she has something against chemists.

Re Farid

Mr. needledick Farid is a disgrace to Zoroastrians/Parsees. I would remind Mr. Farid that Parsee Zubin Metha is the diretor of the Israel Symphony Orchestra.
Chris D Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 10:01 am
There is not a single Jew that protests by killing people.

*coughBaruchGoldsteincough*
*coughYigalAmircough*

Anyway, this thread sucks. For the love of God, Matt, moderate your comments.
roac Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 10:10 am
I don’t want to legitimize faux-Hack by nitpicking details, but he or she left out this person.
mim Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Bush ran as a compassionate conservative. But the objects of his compassion were billionaires who wished they had a few more hundred millions.
Richard Steven Hack Says:
January 13th, 2009 at 12:26 am
Just to be clear, I did not post #20. That was another one of our fucktard imposters here.

Probably SLC, since no Zionist freak can be taken to utter anything but lies, so his denial is worthless.
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