In trying to think of an appropriate epitaph for the Bush administration, I can’t do much better than this:
I couldn’t forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made. . . .
I shook hands with him; it seemed silly not to, for I felt suddenly as though I were talking to a child. Then he went into the jewelry store to buy a pearl necklace—or perhaps only a pair of cuff buttons—rid of my provincial squeamishness forever.
– Nick Carraway, referring to Tom and Daisy Buchanan at the end of The Great Gatsby
I am not sure if Laura deserves this comparison. Perhaps it should read George and Karl, or George and Dick. Whichever way, it seems apropos.
serious question
why isnt bush blankey pardoning cheney etc?
do you think this si a fuck you to cheney?
like he thinks obama wont come after me but them might come after you you drunken duck hunter.
thats for having your hand up my ass for 8 years without lube.
I think The Rude One summed it up about right:
A long, hard slog indeed.
I wish I could be convinced that Bush’s future will be bleaker and more conscience-filled than Tom Buchanan’s.
Bush is the perfect example of self-confidence unburdened by self-refection. He’s incapable feeling responsible for anything that goes wrong – because he advocated what was RIGHT. It was lessor human beings and their lack of resolve/vision/fortitude/etc. that kept him from his goals.
She was in that car wreck with her boyfriend for which she was strenuously exonerated. She’s been rumored to have had drug problems, just like her husband.
And then, there is that shitty way she sought to punish the Obamas for telling the truth about her husband’s administration by not allowing them to move into Blair House until five days before the Inaugural. She was really up front with her displeasure in a TV interview. So they invited that Australian nitwit who supported them in the Iraq debacle, who could have stayed in a five-star hotel at his own expense, while the Obamas were forced, at taxpayers’ expense, to live at the Hay-Adams Hotel.
If the husband is a thief, his wife will be also. Laura and George Bush definitely deserve each other.
This is probably one of my favorite literature quotes of all time.
Yes, it’s particularly good even in its intended setting.
Although, my absolute favorite is Chapter 16 of The Idiot. But I love scandalous behavior.
A spoiled rich kid with no sense of social conscience and no awareness of the public good, of no good but his own and his own class of millionaires. To think that fifty-four million Americans voted for him in 2004, the nadir of a civilization. Pay back is here and I think the taste will be like wormwood as the depression rolls in and our people learn the sad consequences of their previous political decisions.
On Election Night in 2000, when the election was called for Bush (and before Gore retracted) I told my friends that this was it. Say goodbye to the good economy, say goodbye to the surplus, say goodbye to peace and prosperity. I basically envisioned the same future as that prophetic Onion news piece (“Long National Nightmare of Peace and Prosperity is Over”) would say about two months later.
Good lord, I didn’t know how right I would be. Bush has been worse than I imagined, and I was one of those folks who didn’t approve of Bush even when he had 90% approval post-9/11. He still seemed like an idiotic fraud to me, and I didn’t think he was moving quickly enough to get Bin Laden.
When I think about the 2000 election, it makes me think about the way history seems to work. At critical times in American history, the right person has been elected president, ensuring the continued success and survival of this country. Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy. In 2000, because of a confluence of media bias, liberal complacency, a butterfly ballot and judicial corruption, the wrong person was elected. And we have seen the consequences.
Tom and Daisy = Dubya and Cheney
hands down.
Hannah Arendt on Albert Eichmann’s last words:
Bush redux.
In all of his speeches and statements.
Only he didn’t lose big enough to be executed.
So it goes.
Have a nice life, rich boy.
Sweet dreams.
AG
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“Vice President Cheney pulled a muscle in his back today while moving boxes into his new house,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
“Under his physician’s recommendation, the vice president will be in a wheelchair for the next couple of days, including the inauguration.”
VP Dick Cheney in wheelchair during today's inauguration"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."“Cheney pulls back muscle” is a deliciously ambiguous headline.
And when I first saw this, Oui, I read it the other way — which I still prefer to the correct, if boringly literal, one.
Maybe he wants to look sympathetic so he is not prosecuted.
If that’s the idea, it’s ill-advised. The wheelchair will only make him look more like Dr. Strangelove than he already did.
Hmmm, he must have accidentally hefted the box containing his payoffs from Halliburton, KBR and Blackwater, Exxon and the gang.
Who was the last White to “transcend race”?
One might have answered Lincoln, but a reading of his letters suggests that, while he was definitely for making Opportunity equally accessible to all, he wasn’t sure that Blacks had the capability to lead….so no, it doesn’t look like Lincoln transcended Race.
I might think the speaker Wendell Phillips might qualify—the ‘Golden trumpet of Abolition’…or maybe John Brown?