Mr. Bush Goes to Rehab

by va

Apparently Victor Davis Hanson has been tasked with reanimating the corpse that is the Presidency of George "W." Bush. Here he says that Bush's worst problems weren't catastrophic, and that they can be explained by his lack of rhetorical acumen. For example, we may lament "a certain administration haughtiness about the problems in Iraq between 2002-6." But! However! mostly we will remember that No Child Left Behind was a success. Similarly, Mussolini betrayed a certain haughtiness about the wonders of fascism and the prospects of an Italian pact with Germany circa 1939 to 1943, but now we all marvel at his mass-transit wizardry.

And here, in an article Thers mentioned the other day, Hanson says that really, the state of things as Bush leaves office isn't so bad when you think of it in the context of Bill Clinton's departure. "We have now forgotten that by the end of the year 2000, the American economy was sliding into recession. Lame-duck President Clinton had been impeached." I feel a mournful tune coming on: Have you forgotten...

Had I forgotten? If we're supposed to remember the end of Clinton's term when we think of Bush's mess, well, what are we supposed to remember? How did everyone come to terms with the true perils posed to the American Experiement at the dawn of the current millenium? Maybe this editorial cartoon from February '01 will help: Shit sure was grim back in the day! Seriously, though, the irony here isn't that Clinton didn't belong in jail while Bush so richly deserves imprisonment, nor that Presidential imprisonment was thinkable back then while for some reason it isn't today. Really, it's this: if in 2001 a handful of Rikers inmates was selected to run the government, who among us can say they wouldn't have done a better job of it?

Comments

[flory]

if in 2001 a handful of Rikers inmates was selected to run the government, who among us can say they wouldn't have done a better job of it?

Chimpy was being proactive. He selected future residents of our nation's prisons to run his gubmint.

[Me]

Lame-duck President Clinton had been impeached.

It's funny, but I rolled my eyes earlier today when Christopher Hitchens, appearing on "Hardball", brought up the Clinton impeachment in an identical fashion. You know, as if it were some totally impartial indicator of his wickedness, something that just kind of happened in the natural course of things. As opposed to, say, the most nakedly partisan jihad in the history of politics.

[Bitter Scribe]

A certain administrative haughtiness about the problems in Iraq?

Oh, lizard shit! Do these people ever read themselves?

[DrDick]

No Child Left Behind was a success

NCLB was and is a fucking disaster which diverts resources away from actually educating children in favor of preparing them for the test. The only things they learn are trivia with no context or analysis.

[parsec]

Yes, I remember the circumstances of Clinton's leaving office: his favorable rating was multiples of Dubya's and most people recognized that if it weren't for the 22nd Amendment he could have easily won a third term.

[va]

Indeed, y'all. Thers has postulated that it would take more than a lifetime's worth of manhours [sic] to debunk a single issue of National Review; here we begin to get a notion of the amount of effort required to debunk a *single sentence* by Victor Davis Hanson.

[Benito Mussolini (Ret.)]

Similarly, Mussolini betrayed a certain haughtiness about the wonders of fascism ... but now we all marvel at his mass-transit wizardry.

Jesus; will you just quit it?? You wanted a train at 2:00 PM, you got one at two p.m.! What's the problem?

This is still that crap about Abyssinia. I know it.

[Captain Goto]

Lighten up, Benito.

[va]

Benito, timely trains are of no use when everyone on them is late.

[Jemand von Niemand]

Christopher Hitchens

Hitchens is a good reason to demand that BlahBlah show guests pass a blood-alcohol level test before they can appear. We'd never see Hitchens again.

[Bloix]

Bitter Scribe - he reads it and rereads it, suffused with a warm glow of satisfaction at the beauty, grace, and power of his rhetorical style.

[NoOneYouKnow]

Ah, Doug Marlette, master of the easy shot and shallow observation. I once worked with him, yet somehow I don't really miss him. Or "Kudzu."

[va]

Ah, Doug Marlette, master of the easy shot and shallow observation.

Good call. I looked through his archives to try to figure out what his politics were, but beyond "dumb" and "dull" I found no way to describe them.