A Man Out of Time

by Eric Martin

In July 2005, Powerline's John Hinderaker made the case for Bush as The Misunderstood Genius in Chief:

It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.

Now, as Bush's eight-year run approaches the final stretch, the Wall St. Journal picks up the hindrocket hindbaton and stumbles toward the finish line:

The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems. He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.

Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty -- a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House.

Via Krugman, who adds:

Yes, George W. Bush’s status as the most disliked man ever to occupy the White House shows that America was not worthy of him. And attacks on Bush gave aid and comfort to his enemies — unlike the firehose of abuse that will be directed against President Obama, which will of course be an expression of true patriotism.

Shrill. 

Comments

[spartikus]

Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies.

Is this from the Dark Knight screenplay?

[david kilmer]

"Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies"

He stands to be insulted.

[Eric Martin]

dk, FTW!

[xanax]

"the firehose of abuse...?"

Christ, why not "the lynching of discord?"

[russell]

He opens his mouth to speak and
what comes out's a mystery
Thought about, not understood
He's achin to be

Yeah, I feel his pain.

Thanks -

[jwo]

I rarely, if ever, read Krugman, so I may just be missing the boat here. But, to me, his comment reads as sarcasm. I find it hard to believe that anyone could write that paragraph in earnest.

[Eric Martin]

jwo: sarcasm all the way.

[Ugh]

I hope someone is keeping a list of right wingers, from politicos down to bloggers, who were screaming bloody murder about "criticizing the preznit in a time of war!!!" and similar things so when they start in January it can be thrown back in their faces (they won't care, of course, but it will feel good anyway).

[Rod Hoffman]

Sy Hersh is interviewed (can't find the link, sorry) saying, "A lot of sources have told me, 'If you want to hear about how the Bushies tried to subvert the country, call me on January 20th."

Something tells me Sy will call them back.

[Lurk]

Krugman's being totally sarcastic.

I'm a lurker just de-cloaking to applaud the Replacements reference. Good show, sir.

[david kilmer]

But seriously.... I have a new theory which I call the "phase inversion theory of conservative argumentation". The basic idea is that you can get what appears to be a valid argument for why something happened by taking the reasons why it actually happened and rotating them 180 degrees.

A good example was a post on RedState last night that claimed that the Republicans lost because McCain ran to the center and Obama ran hard left. In other words, if McCain had stuck by his base, he would have won.

[david kilmer]

"dk, FTW!"

I'm starting to think we have the same taste in music.

[freelunch]

Yes, jwo, it's drenched in sarcasm. Krugman titled his post "Meanwhile, in an alternative universe". Even by the pathetic standards of WSJ Opinion, this is a truly nutso performance. NRO must be jealous.

The WSJ really meant to say that our politicians and Justice Department were letting us down by letting Bush engage in criminal activities and abuse of the constitution for years without stopping him. After all, they are big fans of law and order, like the rest of the apologists for the Bush Administration.

[John Spragge]

I've said this before and I'll say it again: Winston Churchill managed to speak a moving eulogy for Neville Chamberlain with the Luftwaffe inflicting a 9/11 every week for months. We can put George W. Bush in perspective, as a man and as a policy maker, as well. Indeed, we have to, because many of the policies President Obama will have to roll back did not originate with President Bush (43), and blaming George Bush for the problems risks validating earlier decisions that have as much or more to do with your current problems as those made by President Bush.

All that said, President Bush will hand over an economy and government in dire straights to President Obama; a government that added a trillion dollars of debt in the last three months, a deficit that clearly even the United States economy cannot sustain. The whole US economy sits on a mountain of individual, corporate, and government debt. President Obama will have to manage some basic changes to the culture of the United States to succeed. President Bush came at the end of conservative domination of American politics, and I suspect very little of the policies he advocated will remain.

I call Godwin on Professor Krugman; the "nation unworthy of his genius" meme has echoes of the political testament Adolf Hitler prepared in the bunker.

[russell]

We can put George W. Bush in perspective, as a man and as a policy maker, as well.

Look, I appreciate your interest in balance and even-handedness. It's a lovely thought, and appears to be well-meant.

But I quite sincerely think the issues with GWBush go way beyond policy or errors in judgement. IMVHO, it is no exaggeration to say that the man purposefully eroded the structure of constitutional republican governance during his time in office.

Not a good legacy.

Let's please just get on with what we need to get on with, and not waste time trying to rehabilitate the reputation of George W Bush.

Thanks -

[KCinDC]

the "nation unworthy of his genius" meme has echoes of the political testament Adolf Hitler prepared in the bunker.

And the second paragraph in that quote from the WSJ doesn't?

[wonkie]

Krugman also called Cheney, DeLAy, and Rove "monsters" and criticized the media pundits for treating them like ordinary politicians with whom one might merely disagree.

And he's right.

[Adrian]

Who gives a shit what Bush said in his speech? Wasn't that what the GOP was saying about Obama, that speeches don't matter? Unless they were given by Bush, I guess. Look at what he tried to do in policy instead. He squeeked by a victory in an election dominated by terrorism and claimed it was a mandate to basically abolish social security. He didn't appoint moderate Harriet Miers as an olive branch to liberals, but because of nepotism, rewarding a personal friend with a lifetime cushy job, putting someone in power he knew he could count on personally. He didn't try to reform immigration as an olive branch to liberals (immigration isn't split left/right anyway) but as a servant to big businesses that fund the GOP. When he talked about Iraq he framed the debate to suggest that Democrats were committing treason by sabotaging the US military. And to earn our trust, he tortured people to death in our name.

Man, how shitty a country do you have to think America is, to think that we don't even deserve George W. Bush?

[John Thullen]

The Wall Street Journal editorial page under Robert Bartley, with Paul Gigot as successor, made a conscious decision (Bartley admitted as much; sorry I can't find the quote) to pursue whatever gutter hackdom worked against liberals and the Clinton Administration (lie after lie by hack after hack).

They took a good business editorial page and wrecked it.

Eff them!

They can shut up now.

[Delicious Pundit]

I was just today reading Thomas More's address to Henry VIII, asking him to allow the Commons to have freedom of speech in debate, and he does it uber-cringeingly (this is 1523, before the unpleasantness), like so:

...such is the reverend dread that the timorous hearts of your natural subjects conceive towards your high Majesty (our most redoubted King and undoubted Sovereign) that they cannot in this point find themselves satisfied, except your gracious bounty herein declared put away the scruple of their timorous minds, and animate and encourage them out of doubt.

That sounds just like the tone the WSJ thinks we should have used.

[Gary Farber]

Not incidentally, A Man For All Seasons is a great movie.

McCain's followers threw it all away for Wales.

[MandyW]

Eric, thanks for starting my day with a huge laugh. The pompous WSJ pronouncement gets my nomination for 2008's Most Hilariously Stupid Editorial.

Life's too short to argue with brainless twits like this, or to waste time reading most of their drivel, but it would be shame to miss their most amusing gems of idiocy.

[Hartmut]

The Hitler association was the first that came to my mind when I read that WSJ stuff. Krugman's reminded me more of Nero ('what an artist dies in me').

[robert222]

FYI, Shapiro covered the JonBenet Ramsey case for the Globe, the supermarket tabloid, and rather notoriously at that. Might tell you something about his own standards.

[MattinPA]

I'm more and more stunned by the capacity for self-delusion we're seeing here; it's reaching Jonestown levels. And what in God's name can people be waiting for January 20 to tell Sy Hersh? Things that much worse than what we already know? The mind reels.

[Linkmeister]

"And what in God's name can people be waiting for January 20 to tell Sy Hersh?"

Well, Hersh did say a couple of years ago that there were plenty of more awful photos from Abu Ghraib than had been released, and I remember Rumsfeld saying he'd seen more as well; if there are more of those, there's probably more evidence of other criminal activities as well.

[scotthpayne]

There's still a part of me that thinks we owe Bush a begrudged thanks.

[chrome agnomen]

fer cryin' out loud, i thought the repugs were supposed to be tough! always sendin' boys off to fight the good fight and stuff. sounds like somebody got a whine-o-gram. to quote heartbreak ridge, 'don't go away mad, just go away.'

[a]

It is an act of overt deceit to quote that Hindraker paragraph while omitting the following one.

[liberal japonicus]

Overt deceit sounds like you are calling Eric a liar, so it would be nice if you backed it up.

Here is the following paragraph
from the original 'essay'

Hyperbolic? Well, maybe. But consider Bush's latest master stroke: the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. The pact includes the U.S., Japan, Australia, China, India and South Korea; these six countries account for most of the world's carbon emissions. The treaty is, in essence, a technology transfer agreement. The U.S., Japan and Australia will share advanced pollution control technology, and the pact's members will contribute to a fund that will help implement the technologies. The details are still sketchy and more countries may be admitted to the group later on. The pact's stated goal is to cut production of "greenhouse gases" in half by the end of the century.

This discussion of the progress made by the partnership has an interesting quote

While pact participants were sending mixed messages, critics were fairly unified in their assessment: Without mandatory limits on greenhouse-gas emissions, the deal won't do much to forestall a climate catastrophe.

This view was neatly summed up by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.): "The [Asia-Pacific] pact amounts to nothing more than a nice little public-relations ploy," he told Muckraker. "It has almost no meaning. They aren't even committing money to the effort, much less enacting rules to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions."

The rest of the link might put the accusation of 'overt deceit' in perspective.

[Eric Martin]

LJ: You're my fact checkin cuz