Will GWB Please Go Away

[roo_ster]

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/254262/smug-op-ed-george-w-bush-john-derbyshire

Disgustingly smug editorial by GWB touting how wonderful he is by using taxpayer's money to salve his rich man's guilt...taken down a notch by a former Brit.
"I wish George W. Bush would shut up and go away. He keeps reminding me what a fool I was ever to think that the man has a conservative bone in his body."

The Smug Op-ed:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/30/AR2010113005167.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Something closer to reality:
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/kevin-myers/africa-is-giving-nothing-to-anyone--apart-from-aids-1430428.html

[Leatherneck]

So you side with the guy who wants to control African population by starvation and rampant AIDS and not with the guy who ponied up compassionate assistance. Good to know about you.

TC

[HankB]

It's easy to call yourself "compassionate" when you're using other people's money.

It's gauche to point out that you got that money - in the final analysis - through the threat of violence.

It's even more gauch to show little - or even negative - results from the expenditures.

[MicroBalrog]

So you side with the guy who wants to control African population by starvation and rampant AIDS and not with the guy who ponied up compassionate assistance. Good to know about you.

TC

"Aid to Africa" hasn't helped Africa. Time and time again, aid to Africa had made things worse.

[Jamisjockey]

So you side with the guy who wants to control African population by starvation and rampant AIDS and not with the guy who ponied up compassionate assistance. Good to know about you.

TC

Last I checked, GWB took that money from us, under the threat of force, and gave it to people who think that raping a virgin infant will cure them of AIDS.
That is not compassion.  That is theft.
Let him dump his fortune into that *expletive deleted*it hole.  But taking America's treasure and dumping it into Africa? 

[MechAg94]

So you side with the guy who wants to control African population by starvation and rampant AIDS and not with the guy who ponied up compassionate assistance. Good to know about you.

TC

Wow.  So withdrawing aid means you want to starve them and subject them to death by disease?  That is a huge and dishonest stretch. 

The African people have it in their ability to take care of their own problems.  They don't have to if we dump truck loads of money on them. 

[AZRedhawk44]

I'm piling on Leatherneck, too.

Money from taxpayers should never be considered "charity."  And no politician should ever have the gall to laud himself for giving taxpayer money to something he labels "charity."

Because if I don't pay it and I resist the State mechanisms to compel me to pay it, the State has the very charitable inclination, power and authority to kill me.

[Jamisjockey]

I'd like to take this opportunity to lob a concept into the field of battle:
AIDS quite often comes from a lifestyle choice.  Sex, homosexuality, and IV drug use.
(Blanket statment, I understand that AIDs is transmitted to children and through rape, too, especially in Africa. BUT it is rampant because of lifestyle choices, and exasperated in Africa by ignorance of culture)
How dare anyone demand that I pay for the consequences of another's lifestyle choice?

[MicroBalrog]

AIDS is a disease. I will happily donate - and do donate - to defeat AIDS, like humanity defeated  smallpox.

But I will donate out of my own free will. I do not owe it to the Africans, or anybody my else.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

i'm guessing none of you are familiar with the program in question?  or at least hoping that its so

[roo_ster]

i'm guessing none of you are familiar with the program in question?  or at least hoping that its so

Yes, I am familiar with it. 

45% of the expenditures go to treating existing AIDS infections, a proportion that will only grow over time.

You want to give you $$$ for that cause?  Bully for you.  I might even match you if you get me liquored up.  Folks like GWB patting themselves on the back for giving taxpayer dollars, OTOH, I find sticks in my craw.

[TommyGunn]

B.D.S. has reached a new low ... 

[MicroBalrog]

So everybody who criticizes Bush is suffering from BDS now?

[Jamisjockey]

B.D.S. has reached a new low ... 

Bush gave us alot to be deranged about:

Patriot act
Expansion of Chip and other entitlements
Supported amnesty
9 years of war in two seperate countries
TARP
"Philantrhopy" including increased funding for AIDS treatment in Africa
Increased debt and deficit spending

The man was not a conservative.  NeoCon progressive through and through.

[Tallpine]

Bush gave us alot to be deranged about:

Patriot act
Expansion of Chip and other entitlements
Supported amnesty
9 years of war in two seperate countries
TARP
"Philantrhopy" including increased funding for AIDS treatment in Africa
Increased debt and deficit spending

The man was not a conservative.  NeoCon progressive through and through.

And by doing so he set the stage for the Obamination.  I blame him for that the most. 

In retrospect, I think I should have voted for Kerry in 2004 

Maybe we would have reversed course again and be somewhat back on track by now ... 

[roo_ster]

B.D.S. has reached a new low ... 

I'm sure about low...

Maybe middle or sideways is more accurate, since I voted for the Lesser Evil (Bush the Lesser) in 2004.

So everybody who criticizes Bush is suffering from BDS now?

Apparently.  Even folks like me who voted for the schlub.

[RevDisk]

So you side with the guy who wants to control African population by starvation and rampant AIDS and not with the guy who ponied up compassionate assistance. Good to know about you.

TC

Both are equally bad.  The one who wants to hold a gun to your head to enact his plan of continuing the cycle of famine and death is the evil one. 

Foreign aid cripples countries.  You cannot hold a halo if you are making the problem worse.  I don't think many of us would have a problem sending educators, books, technical advisors, etc.  But we should not send a single dime or scrap of food.  They will never be able to stand on their own two feet if we make them dependent.  Which we have.

Funding towards a cure, inside the US?  Marginally ok.  Paying to fix other countries, ANY other country, that is systematically broken?  Not so ok.  Accidents and natural diseasters happen, and we as Americans tend to be compassionate with our dollars.  But we need to learn when our compassion is hurting the folks we want to help.  Freak earthquake or whatnot?  Sure.  Systematically starving country?  No.  Otherwise we feed a million and condemn ten million to death.  That much karma should weigh heavy on a man's soul.

[TommyGunn]

So everybody who criticizes Bush is suffering from BDS now?

Not necessarily everyone .... I just thought we'd get over it, eventually.  At some point it will be like complaining about Chester Arthur.

Bush gave us alot to be deranged about:

Patriot act
Expansion of Chip and other entitlements
Supported amnesty
9 years of war in two seperate countries
TARP
"Philantrhopy" including increased funding for AIDS treatment in Africa
Increased debt and deficit spending

The man was not a conservative.  NeoCon progressive through and through.

He was *not* a good conservative.  What do you think Reagan would have done if Al Qaeda had done the 9/11 attacks on his watch?  Give you a hint: AQ would not be getting flowers and a condolence card.
Whether Reagan would have avoided Iraq ...dunno; a lot of intelligence services thought Iraq had WMDs.

Now, the rest of the stuff ...yea, I take your point, really, even though I think under Gore and/or Kerry we'd have had it a LOT worse than under Dubya.  I know what Dubya did in Africa about Aids is questionable from the POV of conservatives but it has done some good on a continent that is, in a lot of ways, pretty much a lost cause in many ways.  Plus many Africans consider Bush a hero .... and even Shrubs oughta be loved somewhere .....  

[MicroBalrog]

Not necessarily everyone .... I just thought we'd get over it, eventually.  At some point it will be like complaining about Chester Arthur.

What?

This thread is about an editorial GWB published now. 

If GWB himself his policies are still worth discussing, why shouldn't we discuss them?

[TommyGunn]

What?

This thread is about an editorial GWB published now.  

If GWB himself his policies are still worth discussing, why shouldn't we discuss them?

And we're doing that.....where?
Shrubby isn't the first ex pres to write (or have written by ghostwriter)an editorial or a book.  I happen to have a copy of Decision Points and I will be reading it when I get there.  I happen to like Bush as a person but I think he was a flawed leader, whose best claim to ... "fame" was that he was a better alternative to the demonrat dimwits who opposed him in 2000 and '04.  I haven't read Shrubby's "editorial."  
There's no reason to read it if you don't like Bush and want to get passed him.  There's no reason to buy his book, either, and for the same reason.  
BTW the last "sentence" in your post isn't -- a sentence, that is.  "If GWB himself (believes) his policies are still worth discussing, why shouldn't we discuss them?"  I think that's what you meant to say.  

My point was that I am a little exasperated that every time
Bush" comes up, all the venom  that piled up over eight years comes right back out.  
I can't wait until Obama's through.  That ought to be REAL interesting!

[HankB]

. . . I am a little exasperated that every time "Bush" comes up, all the venom  that piled up over eight years comes right back out . . .

I doubt that folks on this forum are of the kind that blames Bush for tsunamis, melting glaciers, Charlie Rangel, the current administration's $1,300,000,000,000 annual deficit, loud commercials on TV, and a whole host of other problems unrelated to GWB's actions as POTUS. Legitimate criticism is not the same as Bush Derangement Syndrome.

But a lot of people here have a beef with his fiscal policies . . . and are not inclined to give him a "pass" by saying "Obama is worse!!" (Yes, Obama is worse. A LOT worse. But that doesn't make GWB "good." )

And we're not happy about his sinking us further into debt not for our benefit, but for the alleged benefit to those on another continent.

[Monkeyleg]

I can't wait until Obama's through.  That ought to be REAL interesting!

It will set a world record for the use of the letter "i".

[Sergeant Bob]

B.D.S. has reached a new low ... 

You obviously don't know a whole lot about the majority of posters on this forum. I'd suggest you go back through the five or so years this forum has been in operation, or stop screaming "BDS!" when your favorite politician brags about how wonderful he is while spending other people's money and gets criticized for it.

[longeyes]

Bush, like Obama, is a messenger boy.  One is Skull & Bones, the other is just...poison.  But both are minimalist candidates who, as far as I am concerned, are doing the bidding of those that pulled them up from nowhere and plopped them down into national prominence.  Where's the substance?  W. is a good ol' boy with powerful friends inside and outside of Texas.  Obama, with a few tweaks, isn't that different.  Bush rose on sweetheart deals; Obama was the Left's sweetheart.  In both cases FOLLOW THE MONEY.

[grampster]

You know, one of the things that has bothered me about the last couple weeks and the interviews with W is the attitude he brings regarding his non involvement in the State of the Union since leaving office.

Now, I don't believe former presidents should be criticising their successors as both Carter and Clinton have.  Carter has gone so far over the line that I think he ought to be charged with treason.  Clinton is a fairly smart narcisist who just likes the spotlight.

But when W casually brushes of the State of the Union by intimating that he came in and just "did his best" and then walks away, it shows a lack of connection with the decisions he made, ant the people he stood for.  He should own up and stand for why they were the "best he could do".   

I'm finding it hard to describe my feeling and why I feel that way.  All I know is that it pisses me off every time I hear him express his disassotiation.  Your were our President, damnit, George.  We made you Everyman.  You stood in our place.  If you think you're being humble, you're not.  You're being an ahole.