The most successful President ever

I don't know why the Republicans running for President are trying to distance themselves from George W. Bush.

I mean from Bush the wildly unpopular President.  Obviously, they're not running away from his policies.  Those they're promising to continue and then some.

But in the Republican primaries where it's the Right Wing base's votes they have to get to win the nomination, George W. Bush's name has to be revered.  He is, after all, the most successful President ever.

Think about it.  What has the man wanted that he hasn't gotten?  What has he wanted to do that he's been prevented from doing?

He's been able to wage two wars, neither of which he's been required to win or even manage well.  He's killed Saddam Hussein.  Through his puppets in the Iraqi "government," he's handing over the Iraqi oil fields to the multinationals---that is to his rich Texas pals.

He won re-election by stealing votes and got away with it.

This after having stolen and bullied and cheated his way into the White House to begin with.

He has tortured whomever he's been pleased to torture.  Imprisoned whomever he's decided needed imprisonment.  He's spied on anybody he's wanted to spy on for whatever reasons he's wanted. 

For six years he's stymied the regulatory powers of the Government by appointing cronies and hacks and thieves and thugs to every important position.

He's cut taxes on the rich.

He's filled up the court benches with Right Wing reactionaries, racists, and corporate stooges.

He let a great American city drown and continues to allow it to rot because if he made it habitable again all those black people who vote Democratic might move back from the four corners of the country to which they've been scattered and where their votes can't do any Republicans any harm.

His economic policies have made the rich richer, the poor poorer, and broken the back of the middle class.  For decades to come economic progressivism in this country will have as its main goal getting us back to where we where in 1999.  In other words, it will be all repair and rescue work.

The next President will have to spend a good chunk of his or her first term just trying to fix agencies like the FDA to make them marginally functional again.

Thanks to his negligence, carelessness, and seeming incompentence, his party got creamed in the last national election and the result for him has been an increase in his power.

He has been able to openly defy Congress and flout the law and thumb his nose at the majority of the American people (most of whom do not live in those states the Republican candidates need to win to get the nomination; that part of the majority that does, does not vote in the Republican Party primaries) and for all this he's rewarded by the Democratic Congress with even more power!

And let's not forget that the Washington elites love him and fawn over him and his corrupt and vicious Vice-President still.

They lie for him and make excuses for him and attack his critics and fill their columns and talk show with his defenders and shills.

Reagan didn't have so much of the Press Corps so deep in his pockets.

Honestly, in what way has he not been a Right Wing Republican's dream President?

Ok.  He wasn't able to shovel all that money the government collects for Social Security into the pockets of investment brokers and the stock portfolios of more of his corporate pals.

Small potatoes, it turns out.  He's found a hundred other ways to empty the coffers into their bank accounts. 

The one halfway decent thing he tried to do, immigration reform, he failed at, but every king must be forgiven an eccentric whim now and then.

Anyway, he was doing it to help maintain the steady flow of cheap labor.

So, really, if I was running for the Republican nomination I'd wear a button with a big W on it.  I'd mention his name every chance I got.  I'd be begging him to show up at my stump speeches.

And I wouldn't be worried about it coming back to haunt me because I'd know that the Insider Media is so corrupt and so anti-Democratic that by the time November 2008 rolls around Broderella and his court of toadies will be crying over the fact that our great Trumanesque President will be leaving office too soon, too soon.

And if Bush's awfulness gets to the point where even the David Broders can't deny it anymore, well, then I'd know I wouldn't have to worry about that either.

I could just change my tune, rip off my W button, call him Voldemort at every campaign stop, and I'd know that the Media wouldn't report my flip-flop, they'll be too busy reporting on John Edwards' hair or Hillary's neckline or Obama's middle name.

And if I'm really lucky, Bush will have allowed another terrorist attack that he can blame on the Democrats and he'll leave office bragging how he kept us safe for seven years until the appeasers and the cowards emboldened the evil-doers once again.

I'm telling you, if success is getting everything you ever wanted, George Bush is the most successful President ever.

Comments

[Linkmeister]

I love it when you're bitter.

[Kevin Wolf]

I hated reading this because it's true.

[Hustveit]

These are valid points, Lance, but at the same time I think it's important to remember that this is not 2002 and 2004 still. The press may be much the same (though with more admirable examples now than back a few years ago) but other important things have changed.

Cheer up, Lance, even though I (like Linkmeister) like it when you're being bitter :)

[delagar]

God, you're right. I mean, besides the part where he destroyed America, he's the best president ever.

[KC45s]

Amen, Lance, amen. His only sin is that he's unpopular.

[Vir Modestus]

Dude, you have been on a roll these last few days. Keep up the good writing.

[Bluegrass Poet]

My Gawd, this is the most depressing thing I've ever read -- because it's all true. Great writing, but I think I'll go drink myself oblivious.

[Uncle Merlin]

Ouch, this hurts to read!

I'm off to the dentist this morning , that will be a pleasure compared to this!

Where are the founding fathers? ( there must have been some mothers in there too?)

Uncle M

[Kevin Hayden]

And he's proven for all time that anyone can be president, even with a brain on life support, a sociopathic personality, a substance abuse problem and alter-abled vocal cords.

In 2008, I'm voting for a retarded wolverine on meth.

[Demosthenes]

I'd agree, if the Social Security reform issue hadn't broken against the rocks of senior voting and had the "permanent Republican majority" not been thoroughly repudiated. Unfortunately...

[Lesley]

Scorn couldn't be more beautiful. You forgot one thing: his record number of vacation days. He got those too.