Don’t let Bush corrupt the minds of our youth

July 6, 2008

There are more than a few possibilities for a post-presidency career for George W. Bush, but National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez has a suggestion that I really hope the president chooses to ignore.

A totally crazy Saturday-morning thought: Wouldn’t George W. Bush make an awesome high-school government teacher? Wouldn’t it be something if his post-presidential life would up being that kind of post-service service? How’s that for a model? Who needs Harvard visiting chairs and high-end lectures? How about Crawford High? (Or wherever?)

Reach out and touch the young before they are jaded, or break them of the cynicism pop culture and possibly their parents have passed down to them. Whatever you think of President Bush, he’s a likable guy in love with his country with some history and experience to share.

With all due respect to K-Lo, this strikes me as an unusually bad idea. I love the idea of high-profile leaders giving back, and I’d be delighted if more people chose to take time to teach in public high schools, but if there’s anyone in the country who has no place in a government class, it’s the current occupant of the Oval Office (who almost certainly wouldn’t be invited to be a Harvard visiting chair anyway).

Yes, Bush has “some history and experience to share,” but I’d much prefer that high school students only learn about this in the context of a presidential administration that exceeded its legal authority, gave up on separation of powers, and didn’t feel like the rule of law really applied to him. Students should, in other words, look at Bush as a model not to be repeated. Having Bush teach young people about the U.S. system of government is a bit like asking an arsonist to teach a class on fire safety.

Indeed, I don’t want George W. Bush to teach a high-school government class; I want George W. Bush to take a high-school government class.

As long as we’re on the subject of Bush’s post-presidency career, though, Jeff Fecke had a few amusing ideas for what the president can do, starting in January:

* Wouldn’t George W. Bush make an awesome Fox News analyst? Wouldn’t it be something if his post-presidential life wound up with him trying to communicate for a living? […]

* Wouldn’t George W. Bush make an awesome infantryman? Wouldn’t it be something if his post-presidential life would up being that kind of post-service service? I mean, sure, he skipped out on his military duties before, but he said he envies our soldiers in Afghanistan. […]

* Wouldn’t George W. Bush make an awesome doctor? Wouldn’t it be something if his post-presidential life wound up with him trying to save lives, instead of take them? […]

* Wouldn’t George W. Bush make an awesome president? Oh, wait, he tried that — the answer is “no.”

I’ve actually been thinking about this, too. I have two words for you: TV preacher.

he could serve as an aide in my special ed class and work with my tmh kids – or they with him.

i’d only want him there, tho, if it was a part of his community service sentence.

  • Yeah, and Alberto Gonzalez can teach a class on constitutional law. The jokes just write themselves, don’t they?

  • I can’t even go there. A teacher? He should be leaving office discredited and disgraced and facing legal action for his crimes. Nothing else makes sense. We have not even censured this tyrant. Why not let him teach government? How about a Supreme Court appointment? It’s all madness.

  • Wouldn’t George W. Bush make an awesome editor at National Review Online? Wouldn’t it be something if even someone who mangles the English language as badly as he does knew not to put a hyphen in “Saturday-morning?”

  • Bush has much to teach our youth, but it would be best for him to teach it by example. The example I have in mind is: If you violate international law, domestic law, 800 years of legal tradition, and the basic dignity of human beings, you get put on trial for crimes against humanity and spend the rest of your booze-addled life in a prison cell.

    That would be a good lesson to teach indeed.

    (sigh)

  • Actually I’d like to see Bush explain to a high school class how “inalienable rights” are something we give up anytime the president needs to protect us. He could enlighten us about the “protective qualities of secret legal opinions” and demonstrate how they trump American and International Laws.

    Then he could enlighten us regarding the history of president’s who believe “if the president does it, it’s not illegal,” and how their popularity always surges after they leave office.

  • Dumbya as a TV preacher? He certainly does have a lot in common with them, but calvin doesn’t think that he’s smart enough to make in that dog-eat-dog environment. He’d start at the bottom and stay there.

    No, calvin is inclined to think of him as a really bad used care salesman. And, calvin feels badly about the insult to used care salesmen everywhere.

  • He should shave his head, move to a monastary and spend the rest of his life silently repenting his sins.

  • I identify with Bush because when I locked myself in my dorm room and played Playstation my entire Freshman year of college without showing up to a single class, they wanted to kick me out, too. My daddy very nearly didn’t pay off all the credit cards I maxed out to teach me a lesson in finances. Fortunatly, that’s just not how we treat legacy students.

  • The more I think about it, maybe his best role as an ex president would be as Billy Mays assistant in hawking all that garbage on TV. Bush could fumble and mangle the products so Mays could step in and show us how easy they are to use.

  • I have a great idea for a web site! 101 things Bush is qualified to do after the presidency.

    101. Door stop on a cell in Leavenworth

  • Bush will go back to what he’s always done: cashing the welfare checks and pretending to be a self-made man.

  • I’d rather read Bush’s perspective of history and experience from the transcripts of his trial in the Hague, but I know that is only a fantasy. He will in all probably die a happy man, self-deluded to the end, and still positive that historians will vindicate him for his failed presidency.

  • I don’t think this is a real worry. FratBoy will never go near a classroom. Look how much his little foray into the classroom on the morning of 9/11 has continued to haunt him.

  • Wouldn’t George W. Bush make an awesome high-school government teacher?

    Quick—somebody find Tom Cleaver! It’s the one thing that might make him say that homeschooling would be a legitimate alternative to public school!!!

  • Bush should give up his pensions, his stock portfolio and the Crawford ranch and donate them all to Hurricane Katrina charities. Then he should get a job in the working sector and try to survive on the economic policies set forth by his administration and the Republican congress. Perhaps he could go back to selling vacuums at Sears. After all, if he knows anything it’s how to suck.

  • “…Whatever you think of President Bush, he’s a likable guy in love with his country with some history and experience to share.”

    Didn’t they same the same thing about Hitler?

    Why quote TNR? They are shameless. I get depressed because with all I read here I don’t know if any MSM papers ever say anything positive about OBAMA. I don’t get any of the papers so I really would like to know if the entire MSM is just Obama bashing propaganda.
    Is It? Are there any op-eds from the WP or the NYT or LAT etc. saying favorable things about Obama to counteract all these lies and propaganda?

  • Bush Jr. mustn’t miss out on his chance to become male cheerleading instructor emeritus.

  • Bush has already done that kind of time: just this week he was surrounded by retards at the G8. But the Japanese cops wouldn’t let them anywhere near Bush. They were like idiot savant (or rather savant idiots) “Rainman”, chanting: “Bush. Bushitler. Definitely Bushitler. Global warming. Definitely”

  • It’s pronouncements like this that should be a warning to all to start reading. Like, you know, the US constitution for example

    But not surprising considering the source. KaLo’s semi coherent ramblings make any hollywood starlet sound intelligent.

  • First thing I thought when I saw her latest silliness was “aren’t all of K Lo’s thoughts totally crazy, and not just the ones she has on Saturday mornings?”

  • Oh right…teach government by the man who said: “Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”

  • I’ve actually been thinking about this, too. I have two words for you: TV preacher.

    LOL I see we are on the same wave length. I’ve been saying the same thing over and over again for quite some time now. “I think the almighty Commander Guy missed his true calling. The man would make a great televangelist. Given all the God talk he spouts, money he is able to raise, and laws he is willing to break he seems perfectly suited for the job.” (Source)

  • Yeah I can just see this moron trying to get a group of students ready to pass the no child left behind testing. A boob without a fucking clue as to how government is supposed to work, and whose communications skills barely allow him to construct basic sentences, most of them incomprehensible.

  • If you are talking about public service by former presidents, I’m having difficulty remembering any notable public service programs initiated by former Republican presidents. Carter and even Clinton have such service programs in place. Carter’s service sets a commendably high bar for such service, but I don’t think the Republicans believe in continuing public service, unpaid, after they leave office. Country clubs, yes; public service, of course not. The current Bush will surely deny any need to make amends for his dismal presidency. He is already on record as saying he needs to make money after he’s president, so I expect he will be searching for highly remunerative speaking engagements. That anyone would pay to hear him speak is difficulty to imagine, however. As someone has already pointed out, the only way he would do any continuing public service would be if it were part of a plea bargain and ordered by a court.

  • I believe he’s really only suited for the nightly supper club stage at the Arkham Asylum, entertaining the inmates by recounting delusional tales of his great successes. Oh, did I say Arkham Asylum? I meant the American Enterprise Institute. I always get them confused.

    Part of the problem is that, really, he was pretty much good for nothing before, which is why Daddy’s friends decided they might as well put him in the state house, and the White House. He can’t even spend time greasing trade with foreign dictators like his dad, since he’s pissed so many of them off. He really is an enormous waste of precious natural resources.

  • I don’t think he’d be able to muster enough interest in showing up — day in, day out — for class in the same school, whatever th subject; he seems to have a short attention span. But I can envision him doing a circuit of all the nation’s middle schools, offering a half-hour program on farting. Just the right level of entertainment for both sides.

  • It’s better that we let the ‘progressive’ NEA teach our children government. It’s our goal to prove that socilaism really does work when practiced by Americans not the French or Russians.

    We spend more time teaching about secondary PC Americans in our schools than founding fathers. Why? I’d suggest the difference in values the NEA has decided pour into our children.

    You notice that the NEA schools like to compare themselves to other states and not some of the 3rd world countries that are kicking our asses in science and technology. And they spend less $.

  • I should note that a lot of computer hackers go on to become highly-successful security experts.

  • I didn’t see it above but it’s been said many times that Shruby’s true worth is that of a Walmart greeter.

    No disagreement there but the second I knew where KJL was going I pictured the pompous nitwit who ran our high school study hall and also spent time “keeping an eye on” the detention room. He acted like he ran the tightest ship but there was no limit to the number of times the same stuff could be pulled on him. He got no respect except from the kids who already were going to do the right thing and even that was often leveraged into fraudulent escapes and bogus excuses being accepted. (We’d show the honor students a good time if they were willing : )

    The main difference with Shruby is that he would probably end up out back partaking of whatever the miscreants were indulging in and then having to be picked up by Laura when he gets canned.

  • My high school history teachers were almost exclusively atrocious, but at least they were only messing up 55 minutes out of my day, maybe an hour and a half with homework.

    I think I’ve figured it out, though: would up being — she already had Bush for freshman English and has learned everything he could teach her on that subject…

  • If the Chimp gets any kind of academic appointment, it’ll be at Regency, or Liberty, or Hillsdale, or ORU…Baylor might stoop that low. There seems to be very little they won’t stoop to, at Baylor, one way or another…Have you EVER been to Waco? And you don’t wanna, either, lemme assure you…

  • Besides being a teacher Bush and Company need to do what they do best, to promote or encourage Obama to do the rock star approach to this convention stuff too. Blacks are easily manipulated by music, drugs, and sex can be a powerful diversion to the real core of America’s problem for the past century.

    McCain and Company know that America needs to avoid getting interested in the “Quango Tango” This a laughable term “Quango” but is a serious side step of our government to create departments and agencies that are not really controlled by the “people” which has been choking and diverting dollars to the rich the past for at least a century. Any Banker knows they just have to have the right timing and just belly up to the federal reserve window to collect billion for bungling and making mistakes. However, when America middle class is in trouble we are shamed and result in endless debates before anything is done to help the middle class.

    Many have argued that a quasi-government department is unconstitutional. Well folks America have hundreds of them. To include the federal reserve board. Formerly headed by Allen Greenspan, better yet his wife Andrea Mitchell gives political commentary on a regular basis which for me is a wild imbalance of insider knowledge and corruption all very compelling to banking and investments. All creating sludge of improprieties that cause a stress on society for too long. This is the real stench of the problem staring at us for decades, a rot in the economy for the middle and lower class.

    Please America a licensed business such as MSNBC, in the public electromagnet domain is hacking a way with Chris Mathews in his Hard Ball show giving the appearance of justice, ethics, and patriotism when in fact this and other programs on this station are “Busting Balls” to get what they want whether you and I like I or not. Yep that Political Fixity time called Hard Ball is nothing more than a propaganda machine for Bush and Company.

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