Someone from the Bush family is trying to talk to us about foreign policy disasters. What’s the proper response to this?
It’d be one thing if they were talking about disasters of their own making, at least, if they acknowledged that they are of their own making. That’s not the case here, however.
What we have here is Jeb Bush asking us to put him in charge so his family can make some more foreign policy decisions for our country.
The simple answer to this is: “No. Next!”
I took a particular shine to Jeb’s suggestion that what we really need is for other countries to fear us more, like they used to.
I’ll admit that invading and occupying a country in retaliation for an attack carried out by someone else is a pretty good way to induce fear in other countries. It’s kind of a drunk foreign policy, though, like the guy who gets annoyed with his boss, goes home, and beats his wife and kids.
If we want people to avoid us and basically give us the equivalent of crossing the street every time they see us coming, well, then this invade-a-random-country strategy isn’t so bad.
The thing is, it’s kind of expensive.
And immoral.
More like:
who gets annoyed by some person that cut him off on the road, keyed his car, etc., goes home, and beats his wife and kids.
Otherwise, good analogy.
what’s the difference?
Bush/Cheney didn’t report to al Qaeda and weren’t personally subjected to anything from AQ and there was no chance they ever would be.
they weren’t subjected to anything by al-Qaeda?
I don’t know how to respond to that.
I’m not generous with the Bush administration, but I don’t deny that they got their asses handed to them by al-Qaeda in a way that no boss ever laid a beatdown in post-slavery America.
Asses handed to them? His approval rating in the summer of 2001 was near 50%. After 9/11 it soared to 90%. Would be like a boss that was mean but the next day handed you a promotion and 80% raise. Who wouldn’t like an ass whooping like that?
that’s stupid and you know it.
An approval rating in the aftermath of a national disaster isn’t a measure of approval.
Based on the famous My Pet Goat video, Bush was feeling pretty embarrassed during the event. But he seemed to have realized it was actually a big boost to him within a few days. Richard Clarke reported that even the next day people on Bush’s team were swaggering about figuring it could be used as an excuse to attack Iraq.
No doubt Bush was initially worried about being taken to task for blowing off the famous warning memo a month before. But he quickly realized that wasn’t public info and was successfully repressed for almost 4 years.
That wasn’t my take at all on Bush’s demeanor and face/body language in that video. As if he couldn’t sort out whether the news of the second plane crash meant he should deviate from his instructions for that day or not. How many ordinary people engaged in tasks that could be set aside for the moment didn’t do so and seek additional information about the crashes? Of course, unlike ordinary people, GWB knew that Cheney was running his war games that day. So, he could have been wondering if the plane crashes were part of that plan. That still wasn’t the response of a sentient human being, much less a person in an enormously powerful position.
I read his reaction as scared.
Good enough to get him re-elected over three years and a disaster in Iraq later.
Another proper response would be, Sir your family has caused enough damage and carnage to both the United States and Iraq.In blood, deaths, broken life’s and finances. Thank you sir but no thanks we can not afford listening to you.
In a sane country, Bush would be laughed out of the race for having the gall to talk about foreign policy without first apologizing for his brother’s catastrophic track record.
Don’t forget that Jebster was the Bush who actually signed Bill Kristol’s original PNAC letter to Bill Clinton.
Thanks for reminding me. Poppy sure has disloyal shits for sons, doesn’t he? They may have thought they were avenging their Dad’s would-be assassin, but they were really second-guessing their father’s decision not to take over Iraq.
From the extremely consequential to the trivial, it was important to let Dad know how much they hated him, as it is with many families:
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20439256,00.html
“”So I’m drunk at the dinner table at Mother and Dad’s house in Maine. And my brothers and sister are there, Laura’s there. And I’m sitting next to a beautiful woman, friend of Mother and Dad’s,” says Bush. “And I said to her out loud, ‘What is sex like after 50?’ ”
After that, one could hear a pin drop. It was “total silence,” says Bush. “And not only silence, but like serious daggers” from my mom and my wife.”
Privileged, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son. It’s lovely that W. found this story worth sharing in 2010.
I find it hilarious that W. decided to ask a question like that with his wife and mother present, to someone he apparently doesn’t know. Talk about being an embarrassment to the family. Is that a rich person’s thing to do? And yet they still foisted that putz on the country. That’s not a laughing matter.
Bush and the neocons have no foreign policy. If you pay close attention to their talking points, they appear to be months behind actual events on the ground. Wait, come june/july, Obama and the world will have negotiated a nuclear agreement with Iran and Bush will be demanding more sanctions.
I wish all the people who are saying “no more Clintons, no more Bushes” (and elaborating that they “hate dynasties”) would think about it for five seconds and realize that marriage and father/son relations” are fundamentally different.
The idea that we should support George W. Bush or Jeb Bush for president because their father was president is just so much more ludicrous a proposition than supporting Hillary Clinton based on the fact that she was actively, consciously chosen by an adult Bill Clinton, with whom she shared the White House as an adult (not to mention her service as a Senator and a Secretary of State).
“The President married me” is so much more legitimate an endorsement than “the President was my father” (unless it’s Medieval Europe).
Honestly, I wish there was a permanent gag order on every idiot from the Bush Administration. Every time Cheney the Horrible or Karl Rove or any single member of the Bush family opens his or her mouth, they should be arrested.