Bush doesn’t realize he’s already ‘changed the tone’

November 2, 2006

Once in a great while, Bush says something so unbelievable, I have to wonder if he’s an incredibly good liar or living in some kind of bizarro world in which reality has no meaning. Consider, for example, this gem from the president’s interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity.

“I don’t like the tone in Washington, D.C. I feel like that the politics has gotten ugly, and that tends to discourage people around the country. And that’s just too bad.

“I would hope in my last two years I can — and, by the way, I’ve never really resorted to name-calling. And I’m not trying to say, well, you know, I’m innocent and everybody else is guilty. That’s not what I’m trying to say. But I understand that it’s one thing to disagree with a person, but it’s another thing to have to resort to kind of shameless name-calling. And I really don’t think it’s fitting for the president to drag the presidency into that kind of a mudslinging.”

You’ve got to be kidding me.

“Gotten ugly”? A few weeks ago, the president kicked the campaign season into high gear with some unusually bitter rhetoric. “We know the enemy wants to attack us again,” Bush said, whereas Democrats “offer nothing but criticism and obstruction and endless second-guessing.” Shortly thereafter, the president upped the ante, telling a partisan crowd, “If you listen closely to some of the leaders of the Democratic Party, it sounds like — it sounds like — they think the best way to protect the American people is, wait until we’re attacked again.” This week, Bush pushed the envelope to the breaking point, telling a crowd that Dems want terrorists to win.

“Drag the presidency into that kind of a mudslinging”? Bush is the first president to so blatantly use a war to smear his political opponents with unfair and untrue attacks.

In what universe can this man consider himself above the fray?

This is, after all, the president said in 2002 that Senate [tag]Democrats[/tag] are “not interested in the security of the American people” because they disagreed with him on a labor issue, and then refused to apologize.

When Dick Durbin questioned the administration’s gulags, Team Bush has accused Democrats of being [tag]traitors[/tag].

When [tag]Jack Murtha[/tag] unveiled a redeployment plan for [tag]Iraq[/tag], Team Bush said Murtha has endorsed “the policy positions of Michael Moore” and suggested Murtha wants to “surrender to the [tag]terrorists[/tag].”

When [tag]Patrick Leahy[/tag] questioned no-bid contracts for [tag]Halliburton[/tag], Bush’s VP told him to go f*** himself.

And, of course, lengthy books are available on Team Bush’s vicious smears of John [tag]McCain[/tag] and Al [tag]Gore[/tag] in 2000, and of John [tag]Kerry[/tag] in 2004.

The “tone” in DC is noxious because Bush and his team a) made it that way; and b) prefer it that way. For the president to lament the environment that he created is simply breathtaking.

DNC needs to make an ad just like the “Stay the Course” ad format but flipped backwards – this one would start with the Hannity quote, and then show clip after clip after clip of he and his administration resorting to juvenile, over-the-top personal attacks. The public (even prominent Republicans!) are beginning to grow weary of the scorched earth approach of the ‘Thugs, a little well-timed push might get a lot of them over that line.

  • Now I know that Boy George II and Rove have no way to win the 2006 election.

    Because now I know BG2 is trying his best to avoid the just and due punishment he will receive when the Democrats take control of both the House and the Senate.

    How do I know that?

    “I would hope in my last two years I can [change the tone in Washington so I’m not a total lame duck] — and, by the way, I’ve never really resorted to name-calling. And I’m not trying to say, well, you know, I’m innocent and everybody else is guilty. That’s not what I’m trying to say. But I understand that it’s one thing to disagree with a person, but it’s another thing to have to resort to kind of shameless name-calling. And I really don’t think it’s fitting for the president to drag the presidency into that kind of a mudslinging.” – George Walker Bush, 43rd (Constitutional) President of the United States of America

    BG2 just admitted defeat.

  • He’s not talking to us (the reality based community), he’s talking to his base.
    They been makin’ some strong Kool-Aid over there.
    But all of the MSM will give him a pass….

  • Read Conservatives Without Conscience by John Dean. These fold really do live in a place insulated from reality and impervious to reason. Get used to it.

  • Bush says something so unbelievable, I have to wonder if he’s an incredibly good liar or living in some kind of bizarro world in which reality has no meaning.

    Yeah, he’s just not a genuine guy. There are a lot of people like that.

  • “But I understand that it’s one thing to disagree with a person, but it’s another thing to have to resort to kind of shameless name-calling.”

    Since you don’t know me, you have no idea the degree of self-loathing that kicks in when I say that I understand what he means…it’s like this:
    When The Shrub says, “…shameless name calling…”, he means he hasn’t called anyone a ‘gravy sucking pig’ or stated that an individual mentioned by name is an asshole (accidental pickups from an unknown mic notwithstanding. The things that he’s said aren’t name-calling, they’re ‘telling it like it is’. In his self-righteously sick universe, that’s how finely sliced his pars-ley is…

  • And, of course, lengthy books are available on Team Bush’s vicious smears of John McCain and Al Gore in 2000, and of John Kerry in 2004.

    I can’t explain how Bush ignores some of the rhetoric he has personally used lately except to say that he might think campaigning is somehow different from the tone in D.C. itself. The rest of it has a simple if hard to believe explanation that you hint at here: Bush doesn’t follow the news at all and isn’t really aware of all of the things Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, etc. have said and done in his name over the last 6 years. Team Bush smears all comers constantly, but they usually try to keep the President himself separated from the fray. It is very possible he still thinks of himself as a uniter sidetracked by circumstances out of his control.

    Of course, I also remember all of his boastful posturing in 2005 about “spending” his political capital to ram through divisive legislation dramatically changing social security, which really doesn’t fit with the above explanation.

  • We’re just along for the ride. The Republicans revel in worshipping a buffoon while the rest of the country (and world) suffers from his disastrous policies.

    I know what we need to hear next: “both sides” of reality. One side, us, tells the truth and lives in reality. The other side, the Republicans, live in a fantasy world where the dear leader decides what is true, the party apparatus enforces the diktats, and the loyalists berate the sane half of the country with nonsense.

  • I’m so glad President Bush doesn’t resort to name calling. I think I must have been living in another universe, and I just woke up from a bad dream. I’m so glad he doesn’t think I hate America or that I want the terrorists to win. I am glad the President doesn’t think the New York Times commited treason because they reported the truth to the American people. I am glad he doesn’t think Senator Kerry hates the troops and thinks they are stupid. WOW! We have civility and compromise after all. Thanks President Bush!

  • It hasn’t just been the Bush era. The current low level of civility in American politics owes far more to Newt Gingrich’s GOPAC than to Bush (or, for that matter, any Democrats).

  • And I think Lance might be onto something here. We might have just witnessed Bush’s Karla Faye Tucker moment: “(whimpering) PLEASE don’t impeach me!”

  • Shrub’s playing Simon Says with the polls as Simon. The polls say people are sick of the mud slinging so suddenly he goes into half-assed back-pedal mode away from the type of politricking his own “Boy Genius” raised to an art-form.

    Yawn. No one cares except the people who are dumber than he is. He isn’t up for re-election (???) and many ReThugs would like to pretend they have never even heard of the Bumbler in Chief, much less spent the past six years with their noses afixed to his arse crack. It also will justify (in that coke-ravaged mass of neurons he calls a mind) whining and moaning when some one calls him a crook and a liar. “Why are you being so meeean to meee? I never did nothin’ to you!”

    Or maybe this his idea of making friends with Democrats in case they pull off a majority. The Decider has decided he never engaged in name calling (sort of, I’m not sure about the innocent/guilty waffling) so in magical Bush land he never did call them names. There. All better.

    Biggest. Shithead. Ever.

  • “We might have just witnessed Bush’s Karla Faye Tucker moment: ‘(whimpering) PLEASE don’t impeach me!'” – Lex

    LOL,

    That really lifted my spirits.

  • #16 Now if we could just witnesses his second Karla Faye Tucker moment. ZZZZZT. Hey what caused that brown-out? Was it Bush flying into the bug zapper of history?

  • This tin-horn president is tone-deaf, has a tin-ear and hopefully after the elections he will just shut the f*ck up. He’s like a minor character from Clerks.

  • In Li’l Georgie’s mind, he has not engaged in name calling because he hasn’t actually called anybody a “poopybutt.”

  • The symbiance between Herr Hitler’s Reich and Herr Bush’s Reich continues to amaze me.

    In the final days before the fall of Berlin, Hitler finally “broke,” and blamed the defeat of National Socialism on the German People.

    “They’re getting what they deserve,” he said.

    Those “final days” will be the transitional period between Democratic victories on November 7, and the sitting of a new Congress on January 3. Somewhere in that timeframe, I’m afraid that Herr Bush will mutter something along the same lines about the American People being at fault for the defeat of Neoconservativism.

    Afraid, because unlike his ideological predecessor, the “Führer of America” and his crippled GOP Congress still possess the ability to commit this nation to grievous, irrepairable damages, as yet unknown to the Republic….

  • Bush and his Lemmings declaring that Democrats want the terrorists to win is so offensive that not only Democrats, but every American should be outraged.

    I agree with Zeitgeist, except I’d change the theme to “Stay the Quagmire.” ( or Disaster, Rut, etc.) And I’d feature a clump of notable Dem war veterans such as Murtha, Wesley Clark, Max Cleland, and Charlie Rangel — one after another — responding directly (and angrily) to the accusations of aiding the enemy. And I’d have each one charge Bush and the Republicans with insulting “every American.”

  • Steve’s post (# 21) is excellent, and it reminds me of something I’ve often wanted to bring up. Despite Godwin’s Law, or whatever, when IS it time to raise the spector of Nazis and Nazism? Replace the jackboots with tassel loafers and armbands with flag lapels, and one gets a clearer picture.

    The Repubs have mimicked Nazi behavior in a number of ways. Brownshirt-style assault at Bush rallies, using 9/11 as an excuse to do anything, carving away democracy and rule of law, invading a country that was no threat, manipulating the media, and perpetuating the Big Lie.

    I’m absolutely no conspiracy theorist, but weren’t the lessons of WW 2 and the Holocaust to be vigilant and wary of the conditions leading to authoritarianism? (Perhaps Mussolini’s rise may be a more palatable example.) We recall Sinclair Lewis’ warning that tyranny will come to America in the form of a cross wrapped in an American flag.

  • Yeah, Bush never resorted to name calling…

    “There’s Adam Clymer — major league asshole — from the New York Times,” Bush said.

    “Yeah, big time,” returned Cheney.

    When asked about his remark, Bush responded, “I regret that a private comment I made to the vice-presidential candidate made it into the public airwaves”

    which of course was not an apology. His defense was that Adam Clymer wrote mean articles about his daddy.

    I think we know who the major league assholes are. The ones who are about to begin the long process of being impeached, and are already trying to work the refs.

  • DNC needs to make an ad just like the “Stay the Course” ad format but flipped backwards – this one would start with the Hannity quote, and then show clip after clip after clip of he and his administration resorting to juvenile, over-the-top personal attacks.-Zeitgeist

    Think Progress has back to back video clips which essentially does this.
    I also think that iucaffiend is on to something. While we in the reality based community experience cognitive dissonance when watching the Hannity interview, Bush does not have that problem-and not simply because he lacks the ablility to cognate. In fact, I think Bush’s purpose in the Hannity interview was to narrowly define uncivil discourse in such away as to exclude Bush’s over the top rhetoric from the category. This was done for the all of his Brown shirt supporter who must defend against charges of Bush’s incivility in attacking Democrats. All across the country anyone so unfortunate as to have to engage one of these brown shirted cretins about the presidents uncivil tone, will be told self-righteously that the president does not engage in name calling and hence does not contribute to Washington’s uncivil tone.

  • “[The President’s] like a minor character from Clerks.” – Dale

    Hey, the only character he’s like is the chewing gum salesman. Even the guidance counselor egg perfectionist is a better person.

  • “[The President’s] like a minor character from Clerks.” – Dale

    Hey, the only character he’s like is the chewing gum salesman. Even the guidance counselor egg perfectionist is a better person.

    Comment by Lance —

    🙂 Maybe Bush should give up on acting and with his penchant for verbal gaffs just become a gaffer. He certainly ain’t a bestboy.

  • All of the leaders in the Republican Party are functionally delusional. Whether they are literally delusional or just going along for the ride doesn’t really matter–their actions are the actions of people completely out of touch with the ‘real world’. Even the so-called moderates voted for the bill which suspended habeas corpus and allowed for torture-by-any-other-name. [And unfortunately 12 Democrats did so as well. All 12 of them should face incredibly strong and well-financed primary challengers when they are next up for election.]

  • Personally, I think he believes it. That’s part of the beauty of the “Some Democrats say…” construction; if he’s not naming names, then he’s not actually lowering the discourse. Plus, of course, he has Rove for that sort of thing, and can’t possibly be blamed for what Rove might say to anyone.

  • Despite Godwin’s Law, or whatever, when IS it time to raise the spector of Nazis and Nazism?

    Alibubba

    When they get some competent, intelligent people in the Administration.

    To be slightly less snarky, the time for ShrubCo to make a Nazi style power grab could now only come (huge maybe #1) after another terrorist attack if there is a Democratic majority (huge maybe #2). They could have (huge maybe #3) gotten away with it immediately after Sept 11, 01, when arseholes were running around killing people for the crime of being brown but I think if ShrubCo did have Nazi-style goals, it was held back by its inability to focus and plan. The Nazis started with a basic preposition: Ve vant to dominate zer vorld, sat down and worked out how to get it. War was the last step. Do you think Hitler and his Merry Men would stick at saying terrorists are out to get us? Hell no, we’d have “terrorists attacks” every damn day with bruised and bloody brown “suspects” paraded through the streets afterwards with rallies praising Dear Chimpy between explosions.

    Compare this to ShrubCo: They started out with a disaster (one they were warned about but ignored) and certainly the majority of people were behind the decision to go into Afghanistan (a place Hitler would have loved if the Taliban were all blond & blue eyed). But then Shrub took a detour into Iraq and got stuck, support has steadily dwindled and now no one likes him very much.

    If they were trying to start a 4th Reich, they’ve been working from the wrong end and it would be very hard to start now. Yes, we have the PATRIOT Act (which will expire in ’09) and the military torture is a no-brainer bill (which will only get them in trouble during a war crimes tribunal), but I don’t see (and I have been looking) any of the intensive, tightly focused bullshit I’d expect from a serious wannabe dictator. Or at least a dictator I’d take seriously.

    Of course, if CarpetBagger and a lot of other Dem/Lib blogs suddenly go off line you can say I told you so if we wind up in the same camp.

  • tAiO, consider the following similarities:

    ***Ve vant to dominate zer vorld, sat down and worked out how to get it.***

    Let’s change this to “we want to spread American Democracy to the world,” coupled with “God wants us to evangelize the world.”

    ***War was the last step.***

    Hitler took Germany to war against Poland almost three years ahead of the schedule his command staff had established. Their surface navy was nowhere near what they needed to go toe-to-toe with the British, the sub-fleet was only at 20% of expected strength, their tanks were goofy, and their training regimens were nowhere near where the senior generals wanted. Hitler and his ideological minions “micromanaged” the war from the outset

    ***Do you think Hitler and his Merry Men would stick at saying terrorists are out to get us?***

    They did—but the catch-phrase of the day, rather than “terrorists,” was “communists.”

    ***Hell no, we’d have “terrorists attacks” every damn day with bruised and bloody brown “suspects” paraded through the streets afterwards with rallies praising Dear Chimpy between explosions.***

    Same thing happened in the early/mid 1930s; pretty much a street-commando war between Communists, National Socialists, Social Democrats, Anarchists, and what little remained of “Old Guard” Imperial Germans.

    ***Compare this to ShrubCo: They started out with a disaster***

    Hitler’s “disaster” was the Treaty of Versailles.”

    *** But then Shrub took a detour into Iraq and got stuck, support has steadily dwindled and now no one likes him very much.***

    Hitler was the darling of the Reich—until he took one too many detours—and his armies got stuck in the Russian snow.

    Add to this that “the Decider” now has the power to determine whether any individual—including a US citizen—is protected under Habeus. He holds the authority to determine “what constitutes an enemy combatant.” He has a track record, spanning several years now, of effectively declaring himself “not subject to” various Laws passed by the Congress. He exports acts that violate those laws to areas beyond US borders; he blatantly declares that he possesses the inherent right to re-interpret the Geneva Conventions. He withdraws us unilaterally from international protocols related to nuclear weapons—and simultaneously threatens other nations for not adhering to those same agreements

    Not like Hitler?! Personally—I’d say he’s far worse than anything the “little Corporal” could have ever dreamed up. He makes Mengele look—shall we say—“grandmotherly….”

  • My concern about America sliding into something like the Third Reich isn’t aimed at the present administration, except as a possible catalyst. I don’t think Bush or the Republicans are interested in total power to the degree Hitler was. (Money, yes.)

    Hitler and the Nazis finally achieved power after more than a decade of trying. They were mocked on the way, and most Germans didn’t take them seriously; just a bunch of nutcases (read Neocons here).

    But everything has context, and the German context was the Versailles Treaty and the “stab in the back” accusation. There was the humiliation of defeat and a disastrous depression. Plus, Hitler produced a scapegoat with the Jews.

    Then the shit hit the fan. The Social Democrats and communists — not the Nazis, of course — were becoming a violent threat to the State. Hitler became Chancellor. The Reichstag fire and consequent national emergency arose. Hitler became a dictator (with the consent of Germany). All of a sudden, the nutcases, goofballs and thugs were in power. And Hitler began a relentless Big Lie that Germany was imminently threatened by Jews and Slavs. He got the Germans scared.

    A particularly interesting phenomenon — and this reminds me of Bush and the Republicans — is that when Germans were confronted with great injustice, they regularly said, “If only the Fuhrer knew!” They automatically absolved the leadership of responsibility.

    I’ve tormented anyone who’d still reading this in order to get to this point: It’s less the individual leaders than the political environment, I think, that could tip the U. S. into a dictatorship. I think the spark would be either an economic collapse, a pandemic or a major terrorist attack — or a combination.

    Although I don’t think the Bushies are up for such a thing, I’m bothered by how many outrageous acts they’ve committed and how meek the response has been. The Patriot Act and snooping come to mind. It’s our population that worries me. I’m afraid the chaos would be so great that a “fuhrer” would emerge and be welcomed. Illegal aliens could be a scapegoat. A second terrorist attack, the Reichstag fire. And another Kristalnacht.

    One of our failings is that we think we’re an exceptional people, that such a social and political collapse couldn’t happen here. But it already has — between 1861 and 1865. And the same pattern has occurred to different nations at different times around the world.

    I’ll shut up now.

  • Not like Hitler?! Personally—I’d say he’s far worse than anything the “little Corporal” could have ever dreamed up. He makes Mengele look—shall we say—”grandmotherly….”

    Sorry, we must be talking about two different sets of Nazis. I understand the fear and concern that we might slide that way. I agree with Alibubba that no country is immune. But I have file “The Nazis are here I tell ya!” statements from anyone with “It’s the end times I tell ya!” from rabid fundy loons. If you haven’t yet I highly, highly recommend a day at the national holocaust musem (bring lots of hankies and anti-depressants). I think you’ll find there aren’t that many parallels between Hilter and the shit in the White House. Does that mean I think that Bush isn’t that bad of a guy and shouldn’t be dragged to the Hauge as soon as possible? Nope. But not every power mad son of a bitch is anything like Hitler. But here’s where I’ll leave it: If you really think Shrub etc are worse than Hitler, you need to get off the computer and either run like hell or check your weapons because they’ll be coming for your ass real soon.

  • The Answer is Orange:

    Apropos of little, I haven’t visited the Holocaust Museum. I’d like to, sort of. Having been immersed in this stuff forever, I’ve reached the conclusions that A) the Holocaust was even worse than most of us think, and 2) the Soviets won the Second World War in Europe. Throughout most of my life, the Soviets were so demonized during the Cold War that they weren’t given credit for much. But the poor bastards slugged it out with the greatest army in the world at a huge cost (and a significant waste of lives).

    History teaches, if we’re amenable to learning. I can only wonder why, after the disaster of Vietnam, are we repeating the same stupidity in Iraq?

  • sometimes i wonder how much damage all that cocaine must have done to bush. to actually say something like that after implying that half of Americans want the terrorists to win. does he even know what he is saying today and what he said yesterday?

  • What americans fail to comprehend is that the arab world all rallies against israel, and regardless of if the Bush administration were to do an ‘about face’ on all its foreign policy, they would still hate america.
    Even if there were no US intervention in Iraq, Afganistan, etc., there would still be “terrorists” plotting against the US, simply for backing Israel.
    Next time any of you fells like traveling through the middle east, be sure to hit up Israel and see what its like to have to be searched by armed guards with metal detectors on the way into McDonalds to grab a big mac.

    jasonwaine@hotmail.com

  • tAiO—been there, done that, got the t-shirt. And professing that the beast named Hitler can be analyzed completely by using the Holocaust as the only protocol is the same kind of micromanagement that Herr Bush and his legion of thugs have used. Take off those blinders, ‘Orange, and look at the entire picture.

    And as for “If you haven’t yet I highly, highly recommend a day at the national holocaust musem (bring lots of hankies and anti-depressants),” there is such a thing as letting the tears turn to something else—and through such a transformation, sorrow becomes strength….

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