Bush on Putin: Pot, meet kettle

[thatcrazycajun]

At yesterday's White House year-end press conference (see story here), Our Maximum Leader paused between taking potshots at Congressional Democrat leaders for their failure to accomplish much since they took power in January—for which he and his veto pen, not to mention his GOP buddies in that same Congress, were chiefly responsible—to comment on the naming of Russian Federation prexy Vlad Putin as Time's Person of the Year:

"I presume they put him on there because he was a consequential leader," Bush said. "And the fundamental question is, consequential to what end? What will the country look like 10 years from now? My hope, of course, is that Russia is a country that understands there needs to be checks and balances." (Emphasis added.)

Ex-squeeze me?! This from the President who, in just six years of misrule, has done more than any of his predecessors over 2.25 centuries, "Tricky Dick" Nixon included, to undermine, ignore and just plain obliterate the checks and balances between his branch of government and the other two that were so wisely put in place by the Founding Fathers? "Executive privilege" stonewalling of Congress, "signing statements" cherry-picking signed legislation, usurpation of war powers under false pretenses, warrantless wiretapping and e-mail spying on citizens, packing the Supreme Court with wingnuts, political purges at the Justice Dept., gutting habeas corpus and so forth? Yeah, that guy. Naturally, no one in the feckless, gutless D.C. press corps had the presence of mind—or of cojones—to call Junior on his blatant hypocrisy.

"'My,' said the pot to the kettle, 'how black and sooty you are!'" Tuesday, 20 January 2009 cannot possibly arrive soon enough to suit me.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Tuesday, 20 January 2009 cannot possibly arrive soon enough to suit me.

I'm just hoping there's a sane replacement... sane from the point of view of, I don't want to be taxed blind, go to jail for either disagreeing with someone else's theology or for wanting to pay for better healthcare than what FedGov deigns to rip us off for, give up my right to defend myself against two-footed predators uniformed or not, or go to jail for shooting my mouth off. Nor be forced to pay for officially sanctioned torture or land grabs.

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

"And the fundamental question is, consequential to what end?"

You can't tell from that time you looked into his soul?

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Dick wasn't half bad. He scared the snot out of Russia by making nice to the Chinese, got us the hell out of Vietnam, and did decently well with the middle east. OK, he let his campaign operatives get way out of hand, and then was dumb enough to try to cover it up, and he let an incompetent buffoon take charge of the space program. He paid the price for the former of those screwups, and the private sector is in the process of creating space programs of its own for the latter, which is as it should be.

That said, I don't think Dubya was as bad as Lincoln. Lincoln outright suspended habeas, threw newspaper editors in jail, and fought a ghastly five-year civil war over what turned out to be not slavery, but tariffs that were funding social programs. And when his successor tried to salvage what was left of the union, the GOP torpedoed the effort and caused the War of Northern Aggression to live in the minds of Johnny Rebs to this day.

But as you have laid out, Dubya is *almost* as bad.... and as solarbird has laid out, the DNC is complicit, including the DC press corps. They're refusing at the moment to spend the political capital necessary to get this bovine scatology shut down...

The only saving grace is that the GOP is likely to splinter and trigger a DNC landslide for the presidency. I just hope that doesn't give the far left wingers any bright ideas about things... because the political spectrum from left to right is in my mind quite circular, and "communist" and "fascist" are not very different atall.

Frankly, I disagree with Time's choice; everybody has spent their time this year either supporting the Emperor, or reacting in outrage to his latest stunt; damn few folk have been doing much else. (Truthfully, I've only been doing a little, something I intend to remedy tonight.)

Of course, perhaps it is that Time's choice was a carefully calculated smack in the face.... the idea that a Russian - who aren't even effective enemies anymore - had more effect than either himself or one of his allies or enemies must've twisted in that jumped-up cowboy-wannabe's craw... after all, it did distract him for a day...

[banjoplayinnerd.livejournal.com]

No, I think His Nibs is worse, if only because he can work his magic on a much wider canvas than Lincoln ever could have. As for the bit about the civil war, I will grant you that he doesn't have Us shooting at Them in this country -- yet -- but in my opinion the country is more deeply divided than it has been since 1865, and on a larger number of issues. Out of Iraq vs. Finish the Job, Haves vs. Been-Hads, Separation-of-Church-and-State vs. Dominionism . . . take your pick, and I'm sure you can supply your own.