I am hoping that this is Maureen Dowd's final "goodbye" to President Bush -- her last, long, lame column ripping him.
Please may it be the last one. Please may this column mark the conclusion of her eight years of anti-Bush, psychobabble drivel.
She writes:
[President Bush] talks about his father, the commander in chief who went to war with Saddam before he did, like a puppy. “You rarely have people,” he said, “who can pick up the phone and say, ‘I love you, son,’ or, ‘Hang in there, son.’ ”
Maybe he wouldn’t have needed so many Hang-in-there-sons if he had actually consulted his dad before he ignorantly and fraudulently rammed into the Middle East.
When W. admits the convoluted nature of his relationship with his father, diminishing a knowledgeable former president to the status of a blankie, you realize that, despite all the cocky swagger we’ve seen, this is not a confident man.
That is vividly apparent as we watch W. and Obama share the stage as they pass the battered baton. One seems small and inconsequential, even though he keeps insisting he’s not; the other grows large and impressive, filling Americans with cockeyed hope even as he warns them not to expect too much too soon.
Even Obama’s caution — a commodity notably absent from the White House for eight years — fills people with optimism.
W. lives in the shadow of his father’s presence, while Obama lives in the shadow of his father’s absence. W.’s parlous presidency, spent trashing the Constitution, the economy and the environment, was bound up, and burdened by, the psychological traits of an asphyxiated and pampered son.
The exiting and entering presidents are opposite poles — one the parody of a monosyllabic Western gunslinger who disdains nuance, and one a complex, polysyllabic professor sort who will make a decision only after he has held it up to the light and examined it from all sides.
W. was immune to doubt and afraid of it. (His fear of doubt led to the cooking of war intelligence.) Obama is delighted by doubt.
Dowd hates President Bush. She hates him. It's palpable. Her column absolutely drips with pure hate.
She hates everything about President Bush with every fiber of her being. She's consumed.
...He gives the good-and-evil view of things a bad name. Good and evil are not like the Redskins and the Cowboys. Good and evil intermingle in the same breath, let alone the same society. A moral analysis cannot be a simplistic analysis.
“You may not agree with some of the tough decisions I have made,” he said Thursday night. “But I hope you can agree that I was willing to make the tough decisions.”
Actually, no. His decisions have been, for the most part, disastrous. If he’d paid as much attention to facts as fitness, 9/11, Iraq, the drowning of New Orleans, the deterioration in Afghanistan and the financial deregulation orgy could have been prevented.
What?
Did you catch that?
Dowd writes that President Bush could have PREVENTED 9/11, but he was paying too much attention to his personal physical fitness.
She's dumping responsibility for 9/11 solely on President Bush. 9/11! Frankly, that's just insane.
...If W. and Cheney preferred Fox News on the TVs in the White House because they liked hearing their cheerleaders, Obama may leave the channel on Fox because he prefers seducing and sparring with antagonists to spooning with allies.
Right now, though, it’s a huge relief to be getting an inquisitive, complicated mind in the White House.
W. decided there was no need to be president of the whole country. He could just be president of his base. Obama is determined to be president of as much of the country as possible.
That is so lame it makes me sick.
So often in her criticism of President Bush, Dowd has been factually wrong. She has twisted and distorted the truth. Why should this column be any different?
She is so bitter and angry and filled with hate. She complains about President Bush being simplistic, but actually, she is incredibly simplistic in her analysis of him.
At least, it's over. Dowd has to stop. It would be pretty pathetic if she continues to slam President Bush. I'm sure she doesn't want to let go of her favorite sport, but she must. Game over.
I wonder how long it will take before Dowd tires of Obama and the honeymoon ends. It may be later rather than sooner, but Dowd's claws will come out eventually. They always do.
3 comments:
"he briefing, entitled "Bin Laden determined to attack inside the United States", came to light during last Thursday's testimony to the 9/11 commission from US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
It was given to President Bush as part of his daily intelligence briefing.
Ms Rice said it was historical information based on old reporting and did not warn of any coming attacks inside the United States.
However, the memo said Bin Laden had been saying for some years that he wanted to bring the fight to America.
The BBC's Jon Leyne says the briefing appears to challenge repeated assertions by the White House that it had no specific information that al-Qaeda was planning to attack within the United States."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3616005.stm
It is positively absurd for Dowd to assert that President Bush could have prevented 9/11 but that he was too busy worrying about fitness rather than facts.
As usual, Dowd plays fast and loose with the facts.
Anyone familiar with the August 6, 2001 PDB knows that it contains a list of al Qaeda's activities during the 1990's. Its contents are historical, as Dr. Rice explained. Explicit terrorist activities mentioned in the PDB occurred before Bush took office.
Nowhere does the memo speak of any pending threats to the United States with specificity regarding time or place. It does not suggest a qualitatively more looming terrorism risk than that which was known to exist during the Clinton years.
A fact that Dowd ignores: The White House approved a plan on September 10, 2001, to remove the Taliban from Afghanistan.
That is hardly a display of passivity in terms of the terrorist threat. The sad reality is the plan's implementation was nearly 3000 lives too late.
It is disingenuous for Dowd to condemn President Bush for a lack of aggressive action to counter terrorism.
Instead of blaming President Bush, Dowd should ask why the terrorist attacks and the deaths of Americans during the 1990s weren't heeded.
The PDB simply had no actionable intelligence.
She is so bitter and angry and filled with hate. She complains about President Bush being simplistic, but actually, she is incredibly simplistic in her analysis of him.
Exactly.
Amazing she has been kept on at the NYTimes...then again....This is the NYTimes!
Post a Comment