Lame Duck Is What?
He was supposed to become one nearly two years ago. But Chimpy never quacked. Here’s the Financial Times on the repudiated, lowest-polling president in history, or whatever they say he is, and his final bits of unfinished business … aside from wrapping up Iraq with a bow for Obama and lining up the guy who fixed that place to take on Afghanistan, that is:
George W. Bush is already looking forward to retirement in Texas when he leaves office. “No doubt I’m heading straight home,” he told CNN this week. “I’ll probably get back and take a deep breath.”
However, until he hands over the White House keys to Barack Obama on January 20, Mr Bush remains the boss. That will be evident this weekend when the president hosts a summit of the 20 leading economies in Washington, while Mr Obama lies low in Chicago.
Mr Bush hopes the event will partially recast him as a statesman presiding over an international response to the financial crisis, as opposed to the president who was asleep on the watch as Wall Street imploded.
In reality, his main objective at the summit looks likely to be holding the line against European efforts to tame US-style “jungle capitalism” with tougher international regulations.
Another Alamo-like showdown is looming for Mr Bush on the domestic front, as the Democratic-controlled Congress pushes for a fresh economic stimulus and more government support for the ailing car industry.
The White House has voiced scepticism about both proposals, putting Mr Bush on a collision course with the president-elect, who supports them.
Mr Bush has made his own demands for the so-called lame-duck legislative session that starts next week, calling for Democrats to drop their opposition to the pending US free trade deal with Colombia.
That guy never quits. Which is why he made such a great wartime president.
Prior lame duck scholarship:
George Bush’s Exceedingly, Surprisingly, Very and Quite Long Goodbye. June 11, 2007:
I think we can now officially call this a lame-duck Congress:
WaPo: No-Confidence resolution against Gonzalez fails in the Senate.
I don’t mean to be cute about it. OK, I do. By the standard that’s been applied to President Bush, the Democratic Congressional leadership is toast. Hamstrung and hogtied. Sorry, insensitive choice of words. How about pistol-whipped. Bitchslapped. Lame. L-A-M-E.
But let’s hear it from the lame duck himself:
“They can try to have their votes of no confidence, but it’s not going to determine — make the determination who serves in my government,” Mr. Bush said, adding, “This process has been drug out a long time, which says to me it’s political.”
Lame Duck Is Who? June 18, 2007:
Having put them on the ground with the surrender veto, would it be wrong to start kicking them in the head? Bush straps hightops on his webbed feet for sneaker party all over Dem spending.
George Bush Delivers His Final State of the Union Address, Jan. 28, 2008:
Once again, the president of the United States didn’t get the memo. Someone forgot to tell that guy he’s a lame duck and a failure.
It’s been a major shortcoming. George Bush has refused to acknowledge it time and time again. He was supposed to have figured it out when the American people elected a Democratic majority to Congress. It turns out he was the only one who noticed the asterisk next to that mandate for change.
George Bush was supposed to have become meaningless when his vice president’s aide was convicted for his role in a non-crime. He was supposed to have become irrelevant when his own party rejected his immigration reforms. He was supposed, a long time ago, to have recognized that America was beaten and despised in the world, an America bested by ragtag terrorists. He failed to do all these things.
And Monday night, again, George Bush walked out to face the United States Congress and us, the Americans, refusing to acknowledge what so many insist he must.
Instead, he talked about responsibility. A “shared responsibility” to us, the people. He said it like he actually expects this Congress to acknowledge that it owns some of that. But he was serious, as idealistic as someone who has always expected all of us to rise to the challenges and face the realities with which we’ve been presented. Even after all these years ….
Topics: Bush
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:17 pm on Wednesday, November 12, 2008
10 Responses to “Lame Duck Is What?”
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November 12th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
True. He will be missed.
November 13th, 2008 at 1:14 am
Bush is the best. Just the best. I am thankful on a daily basis that he has been at the helm keeping us safe from the monsters out there.
November 13th, 2008 at 2:27 am
mpat, and at the same time terrified of what is to come.
November 13th, 2008 at 6:06 am
I like and respect Bush. I think he has been badly treated by the media and by many in his own party. It might be that there will be a time in the future when a lot of people rethink their opinion of George Bush.
November 13th, 2008 at 6:59 am
Irony will rarely ever be exceeded by the hordes of Bush-bashers, most especially those in the elite media, crowing incessantly about his low “approval ratings”, given their own, even lower ones.
The same evenhandedness and consideration that has plagued Bush by leaving him seemingly vulnerable to the slings and arrows of the silly and pompous will seem positively delightful shortly.
And finally- what could be more absurd than suggesting that a President controls the mortgage market, or the economy as a whole? Is there a room in the basement of the White House where there’s banks of levers and buttons, and the Chief goes down there every day and operates the US economy?
Such suggestions speak more to the ignorance of the suggester.
Meanwhile, the real truth is that things tanked once the Democrats got hold of the law-giving Congress, where the actual control rests. Remember that 4% growth? 4.5% unemployment? Fifty-dollar crude? (Well, until Bush unleashed the drilling as far as he could)? That was all before the Democrats took over the legislature and worked hard to cast Bush as the wrecker.
Nice job, folks, and Mr. Bush, please enjoy your much-deserved retirement.
I believe you will.
November 13th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
He looks profoundly happy in that photo. Almost as if he’s thinking, “It’s almost over and I can go home.” President Obama has big shoes to fill, whether he knows it or not.
November 13th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
“big shoes”
I picture a little girl in mommy’s hat and dress and way too tall high heels.
Obama will never fill Mr. Bush’s shoes.
November 13th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
I’ll forever remember with glee how the Democrats spent eight frothy and screaming years wailing about how Bush resided on the far end of the last small section of the final inch of the neo-paleo-ignoro-con section of the Right half of the poli-continuum - that he was so far out there that he could probably still see yesterday coming, and about how, from their spot right near the Center of the continuum, they couldn’t even see people who were able to look further away and see Bush . . .
. . . . while all that time Bush’s approval ratings were dropping, not because he had lost the approval of the last seven Democrats who didn’t care what their kids’ Womyn in History counselors thought but because he was losing the two-thirds of the Republicans who finally tired of him being Ted Kennedy on education, Bill Clinton on foreign relations, Jimmy Carter on finance, and his own dad on taxes.
I’d suspect a brilliantly-well-thought-out ploy to drag the Center leftward, but for knowing the people involved.
November 13th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
[...] Jules Crittenden » Lame Duck Is What? He was supposed to become one nearly two years ago. But Chimpy never quacked. [...]
November 15th, 2008 at 12:32 am
Bush has one great weakness. He is not ruthless enough. I think this affected both his domestic policy and his war direction. He keeps people around too long, even when he shouldn’t. The Duke of Alba (d. 1582) commented that “Kings use men like oranges. They squeeze out the juice and throw away the rind.” It comes with the job, and Presidents must do it too. The really great Presidents had that streak of ruthlessness. Bush lacks it. He would have served himself and the country better if he had been more ruthless throwing out the failing or poorly performing earlier. Look how long he kept Tenet around. It makes Bush a more amiable man, but a less effective President.
However, he is much more farsighted than any of his critics. He understood the real causes of the jihadist terrorism, and in the Iraq Campaign has sought to destroy them, by injecting the virus of liberty into the Middle East. It’s a long term project, but it’s curious that all those who call hm a moron and denounce his policies have no clue themselves about how to fight the jihadists. The jihadists arise out of the dysfunctional political culture of the Arab world and until that is reformed we will continue to be attacked by jihadist terrorists.
Now for all of you who think Bush’s economic performance was so bad, we now have a President-elect who, despite his elite education at Columbia and Harvard Law, is more ignorant about economics and the effects of tax policies than a blue-collar plumber. But Obama has the elite credentials dontcherknow, and he speaks sooooooo beautifully, at any rate when he has a teleprompter in front of him. What more could you want: good sense, good judgement, a record of accomplishments? RACIST!!!!!