Breaking news: Jonathan Chait still hates Bush, and thinks he’s a dummy-head
Boy, is this article not news.
Jonathan Chait seems to be miffed at the recent surge of positive re-evaluation of the George Bush presidency, and of George Bush as a man. And why not? Chait went on record back in 2003 as one of the most virulent (and at least the most honest) of Bush-haters in an MSM loaded with them.
And lest you think that my saying he “hates” Bush is an exaggeration, I’m merely quoting Chait himself:
I hate President George W. Bush. There, I said it. I think his policies rank him among the worst presidents in U.S. history. And, while I’m tempted to leave it at that, the truth is that I hate him for less substantive reasons, too. I hate the inequitable way he has come to his economic and political achievements and his utter lack of humility (disguised behind transparently false modesty) at having done so. His favorite answer to the question of nepotism–“I inherited half my father’s friends and all his enemies”–conveys the laughable implication that his birth bestowed more disadvantage than advantage. He reminds me of a certain type I knew in high school–the kid who was given a fancy sports car for his sixteenth birthday and believed that he had somehow earned it. I hate the way he walks–shoulders flexed, elbows splayed out from his sides like a teenage boy feigning machismo. I hate the way he talks–blustery self-assurance masked by a pseudopopulist twang. I even hate the things that everybody seems to like about him. I hate his lame nickname-bestowing– a way to establish one’s social superiority beneath a veneer of chumminess (does anybody give their boss a nickname without his consent?). And, while most people who meet Bush claim to like him, I suspect that, if I got to know him personally, I would hate him even more.
And that’s just the first paragraph.
Nevertheless Chait is, of course, a fine example of a person eminently qualified to evaluate Bush’s legacy in a completely objective and reasoned manner.
Talk about illustrating leftism in a nutshell.
Apparently there’s still no cure for Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS). Must be because of Sequestration.
Jonathan Chait’s opinion about a man in retirement is more important than families being gassed by nerve toxin, weapons sales, government powers being reorganized, and more…
As evidence of the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons mounts, the Obama administration has further confused matters regarding its own stated “red lines.” The evidence appears to be strong but not necessarily “conclusive.” As the April 25th White House letter states, “the chain of custody is not clear, so we cannot confirm how the exposure occurred and under what conditions.” This sort of rhetoric points to an administration that finds itself cornered but, at the same time, seems intent on postponing any decisive action for as long humanly possible.
as long as chait has no stupid opinions on meaningful things, obama will be safe…
which might be why the left employs morons that get the goat of smart people to the point of distraction, as the smart people are the only ones who can get others out of this, and they have to be locked down by their own natures first.
given the game is over, and there is little chance of a turn around. i can completely understand neo giving up but not admitting it.
its a very old form of female mind protection
ignoring the reality of something and making it polite discourse to discuss other things, and not bring up whats important (its why us men used to keep women out. but without a real crisis for so long, we forgot why)
In psychology, avoidance coping, or escape coping, is a maladaptive coping mechanism
[edited for length]
Here is an article by Jonathan Chait on household duties which strikes me as well done and thought-provoking. I guess he didn’t stop to think if Dubya washed the dishes. 🙂
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/03/really-easy-answer-to-the-housework-problem.html
So much of the liberal agenda him (and the emotion underlying it) has its roots in high school social interactions and observations.
“The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign.” – Alinsky
ie. burn you out so you avoid what they do, and once no longer watching, we all sleep through it.
its a form of emotional attrition they learned after WWI and germany… the people were too tired to fight to protect what they had, so they lost it… if they were not so tired, and emotionally worn out, then hitler and stalin would not have been able to try to first carve up germany, then after that failed, try to carve up europe.
its repeating but the emotional wearing down is from all the inanities…
“If we like it or not, we will have a One World Government. The question is if it will beachieved through consent or through conquest” J. Warburg
“The Technocratic Age is slowly designing an every day more controlled society. The society will be dominated by an elite of persons free from traditional values who will have no doubt in fulfilling their objectives by means of purged techniques with which they will influence the behavior of people and will control and watch the society in all details”. “…
it will become possible to exert a practically permanent watch on each citizen of the world”.
– Zbigniew Brzezinski co-founder of Trilateral Commission
Today, America would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there were an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence.
It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil.
The one thing every man fears is the unknown.
When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the World Government.”
Dr. Henry Kissinger, Evians, France, 1991
Here’s another example – a hit piece on Bush at CNN by a Princeton history professor:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/23/opinion/zelizer-bush-library/
My comments:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/23/opinion/zelizer-bush-library/#comment-875552995 , where I point out the OP blames Bush for things that are due to Obama course changes or post-Bush events.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/23/opinion/zelizer-bush-library/#comment-875502256 , where a commentator becomes upset when I correct him on the bases for the Iraq mission.
It matters to be persistent and repetitive in setting the record straight on Bush. These people are deeply personally invested in demonizing Bush. It’s their identity. They zealously push the misinformation and propaganda as settled truth. Challenging their views on Bush is akin to challenging their religion. To them, defending Bush is the same as defending Hitler or Stalin. They will passionately uphold the false narrative for the rest of their lives.
Republicans run away from Bush’s legacy. But rehabilitating Bush’s legacy is a golden opportunity for them. If they can rehabilitate Bush’s legacy, they will seize the political upper hand while discrediting opponents who identify with the demonstrably false narrative on Bush.
One word is enough to explain this piece- jealousy. Ok, one other GAG. But I will qualify that with an explanation.
Chait hates GWB because he judges himself to be a better man in any and every catagory he can think of, and yet nobody gives a damn about Chait, and, historians will not write a single word about him. Not even this intellectual masterpiece will be remembered, and it drives him insane to think somebody inferior to himself could be “handed” anything but scorn.
The whole article sounds like the kind of thing you’d overhear a teeanage girl gossiping about who’s insanely jealous of her highschool cheerleading rival. Chait is reminicsent of the psuedo-intellectual kid who was always on the outside looking in, jealous of everyone who had something he didn’t; a little tweek who nobody paid any attention to, and he’s never gotten over it. So now he’s all grown up bashing people more successful than himself, still convinced a guy like Bush doesn’t deserve any success or praise because they’re not as smart as he is. The article is kind of thing you would expect to see in a college newspaper. A petty, irrelevant, utterly self serving commentary, with the author oblivious to the notion that he’s displaying all the contemptable character flaws he’s attributed to the object of his hatred.
Fortunately, I do not depend on such as Chait for my opinions. I will not read his diatribe. My wife chides me for ignoring the “enemy”, but, I respond that life is too damn short to waste any part of it reading or listening to those I don’t respect or trust.
I believe that Lizzy is correct that there clearly is no cure for BDS. GWB has made a concerted effort to stay out of the lives of Americans in the four years since he left office; now we know why. Whenever he appears, certain folks develop a terrible itch. If he were a vindictive soul, he would make sure that he is in the news every week and keep that itch activated. The frenzied scratching would resemble a dog-pound built on a flea farm
Wasn’t Obama the classy one at the opening of the library? Never pass up an opportunity to politicize an event.
I wish I could have read Barbara Bush’s mind as Slick Willy declared himself her virtual black sheep son. As ever, Slick thought the event was all about him.
Chait has a permanent ingrown case of BDS. He’d die without it.
Demonization and destruction is their chief strategy and weapon. As time goes by it becomes clearer and clearer.
We can see them trying with Ted Cruz. We see it with Sarah Palin. There are others.
They just about totally destroyed Bush. They destroyed his presidency. Did they destroy the man?
They tried and tried with Reagan, but could never really lay a glove on him.
They did it completely with Nixon, with Nixon’s own help. I fully recognize that Nixon is an imperfect place to make a stand, but nevertheless I never let a gratuitous shot at Nixon go by uncommented upon (such as, whatever Nixon did was chump change compared to the corruption we see in the present- I always say at least say that much). I don’t even cede Nixon to them. Their strategy warrants no gimmes.
Gringo: actually, I found it through another route—memeorandum (it was on there earlier today, but I don’t see it there anymore). And I was familiar with Chait’s “I hate Bush column from way back—have written about it before, actually. But I also saw your previous comment, and yes, I do often (not always) read the comments here.
Eric, you rock! Your comments on that Bust article were amazing.
Here’s another perspective from a unnamed “hardcore Democrat” journalist in the Washington Times: http://tinyurl.com/c4ok6dx
“Shortly after Barack Obama was elected in 2008, a fellow reporter who’d covered President George W. Bush all eight years told me she’d had enough of the travel and stress and strain of the White House beat, that she was moving on…..Just before we said our goodbyes, I asked her if she’d miss covering President Obama.
‘Not at all. He’s an inch deep. Bush is a bottomless chasm, a deep, mysterious, emotional, profound man. Obama is all surface – shallow, obvious, robotic, and, frankly, not nearly as smart as he thinks. Bush was the one.”
Eric, I appreciate your clear-minded defenses of Bush and the Iraq War. Reading your comments on that other blog was like reading something I would say if I could write as cogently as you do. Keep up the good work.
There is plenty in Bush’s legacy which I don’t want to defend. TARP, for example, and Medicare Part D. But note, the left favored TARP (Obama voted for it), and the Democrat Medicare drug plan was rated by the CBO at more then twice the cost as Part D. Bush was very much a moderate, who achieved his goals in a bipartisan manner, getting 60% of Senate Dems to vote for the greatest evil of all time, the war that deposed Saddam . . .
Chait’s just another sissy peckerwood for whom manhood and maturity are novel and unknown concepts. Take a flying leap at a rollin’ doughnut, little Jonny
I hate the Left. In current affairs, nobody tops them in anti-human progress.
“They did it completely with Nixon, with Nixon’s own help. I fully recognize that Nixon is an imperfect place to make a stand, but nevertheless I never let a gratuitous shot at Nixon go by uncommented upon (such as, whatever Nixon did was chump change compared to the corruption we see in the present- I always say at least say that much).”
The guy that used those two journalists to report on the FBI’s wiretapping was the same one who gave Ayers immunity to terrorism charges through non authorized searches of their home.
In comparison to the wiretapping the FBI, Pentagon, and others were doing on Nixon and each other, the issue that really became clear was how easy the media could be used as a pawn. And now we see how it ended up decades later, with the media being a great representation of …. truth.
“There is plenty in Bush’s legacy which I don’t want to defend. TARP, for example, and Medicare Part D. But note, the left favored TARP (Obama voted for it)”
Bush asked Obama what to do with TARP, and so he installed a plan that Bush knew Obama agreed with. In order to facilitate the transition.
Normally that’s both a courtesy and a way to continue the passing of power in the Constitution. However, the Left’s not playing that game… unless people didn’t notice.
Eric, 3:40 pm — “To them, defending Bush is the same as defending Hitler or Stalin.”
I don’t believe so. To them, Hitler is capital-E Evil, the very epitome of Evil; whereas to some of them, Stalin is little-e evil, an evil man, and to others of them, Stalin wasn’t really all ^that^ bad — after all, he believed in collectivist solutions to humankind’s problems (can’t be all ^that^ bad!).
Eric,
I agree that we have to stand up for Bush. It is so easy to attack him on single actions taken out of the context of real world messiness.
Even something like our actions in Afghanistan have to be considered this way. There was a choice between going it alone and doing it our way or going in with some allies and then having to accomodate their input into the ROE. I saw it in Germany. Americans were allowed to be the brutal fighters while Germans took a relatively calm area in the North and built schools. Of course, the latter noble action was given plenty of local media coverage and reinforced the Germans’ self image of peace lovers with enlightened ideas. This made me want to puke, but the alternative was a Germany with no skin in the game that would then be free to broadcast even more examples of primitive Americans hurting the poor Afghans. Needless to say, such broadcasts would be used as recruiting films by AQ.
The point is that every action Bush took was a very messy tradeoff. That he took them with a clear sense of his values and limitations made me admire him.
Why is no one talking now about his actions in Pakistan? Doesn’t anyone remember that we needed Musharraf, but were then faced with the Bhutto challenge and her subsequent murder? Bush managed to navigate the treacherous waters pretty well. There hasn’t been an all out civil war there yet. They seem to have gotten the message that they were either with us or with the enemy (a line that was taken in Germany to be directed against Germans. Talk about narcissism.)
People also tend to forget the problems between North and South Sudan, another hotspot that Bush cooled off. Or Parsley Island, a couple of rocks off the coast of Morocco inhabited by a few sheep. I remember the anxiety here about whether the dispute with Spain would escalate into some kind of war. Then a call from Colin Powell (certainly with Bush’s approval) put the isssue to rest. Imagine how further problems between an Islamic country and the West would have aided us in our fight against the jihadis.
As to TARP, few realize how the possibilty of a worldwide banking shutdown would have hurt us abroad. German banks were particularly vocal, and would have been all too willing to lay their own mismanagement at our feet.
Few in America realize how every word from America is scrutinized abroad and how difficult it is to walk through this minefield–certainly not a bunch of pundits concerned only about their deadlines. What I find interesting is how little people are now talking about Obama. At most, you get a wishywashy report taken from a WH press brief. He has been made a saint, but no one is verifying his miracles.
People expect too much of their leaders, they are looking for some kind of Heroic General to lead them to victory.
Unfortunately, the American people no longer have the virtue to even deserve such a leader any more. Like Ancient Athens, successful generals who nevertheless got into political hotspots back home, were gotten rid of, no matter how good they were or how much they learned from their mistakes.
Got to give you thumbs up Eric for that. To add to that what often doesn’t get mentioned is how the Duelfer report basically said you drop sanctions Sadam just rebuilds his chemical program.(Which is what it really says btw)
Actually to add to this the other retort I usually hear from the left is we should have at least done one more round of inspections. Was I the only one that figured this was a straightforward but cynical maneuver? I just figured they said that to delay things. You delay the invasion from March to May or June. Oh wait, you can’t invade then because the average temperature is in the 90’s by then. It doesn’t cool off until November at which point given the start up to the presidential campaign means the invasion doesn’t happen until March 2005. (Yes, I really think this is what would have happened if it had been delayed only “2 months”)
Come to think of it I wonder if he hates him for one of the standard reasons the left gives. You know, for firing Shinseki over his troop level answer.(People on the left tend to get upset when you point out his retirement was announced in April 02 and that answer to the number of troops in Iraq was in March 03. Basically Bush would need a time machine to “fire” him over it.)
BDS is just the new name for an OLD leftist tactic. New is anti-Palinism, perhaps aka as “PDS”.
I give you “McCarthyism”, now enshrined as a common word, understood by all and agreed with by most as to its definition. His tactics and his alcoholism aside ( only the Right has alcoholics??), He was not wrong. Neither was the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Who’s Jonathan Chait?
Lizzy, Thanks. The whole comment thread with “Klootzak” no longer appears for some reason, including the part where he loses his cool. The comments are still there; they just aren’t showing. Here’s the link to my last comment, which shows the previous comments in the thread, too:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/23/opinion/zelizer-bush-library/index.html#comment-875693061
JJ, I believe you’re referring to my explanation of the public controversy over the Iraq mission. If you liked that one, I think you’ll like this one better:
http://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2013/03/10-year-anniversary-of-start-of.html
It’s my thoughts on the 10 year anniversary of OIF. The post also aggregates my blogged thoughts on Iraq over 9 years. It’s long with a lot of links if you have the patience and interest to take side trips while reading.
Don, It’s fine not to agree with particular Bush policies. However, I believe it’s important to persistently set the record straight on Bush (even if you emphasize your own view on a particular issue while doing so) for the sake of detoxifying and fixing America’s political environment.
expat, You’re on the mark as to why rehabilitating Bush’s legacy isn’t a favor to him; it’s needed for the nation’s political health. As bumbling as Bush appeared on TV, he was a serious, thoughtful President who valued doing his job over appearance and scoring partisan-game points. One can disagree with particular Bush decisions, but in the long run, we need leaders who share Bush’s serious, thoughtful approach to their civic duties.
Ymarsakar, Heroic leaders are good, but I’ll settle for leaders who are serious and thoughful, and will risk unpopularity to make the hard call. Whenever the Dems take a deliberately anti-Bush action or the GOP runs away from Bush, the leadership principles of our whole political class are degraded. I view rehabilitating Bush’s legacy as a needed reboot for our political class.
NotsoheavyD,
Regardless of what Iraq actually possessed, the test was based on Saddam’s compliance. That’s the only way we could know for sure. I agree the Duelfer report shows that in terms of demonstrable possession after the fact, Saddam still fell short. Saddam also was required to comply with humanitarian and other standards that he didn’t begin to pretend to meet. Full compliance meant regime change in Iraq, whether or not Saddam was in charge of the new regime.
Here are my thoughts on the Blix alternative:
http://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2012/05/problem-of-definition-in-iraq.html#blixalt
Did you see Ezra Klein’s little blurb on it? Klein is a master of couching his opinion as fact and supporting his opinion with further opinions couched as facts. It’s turtles all the way down.
He conceded that Bush was smart but a terrible President. To support that assertion, he cited a group of “Presidential Scholars” who have him listed 38th overall. Oh, OK. Still worse than Grover Cleveland, eh? Coolidge is where?
“I view rehabilitating Bush’s legacy as a needed reboot for our political class.”
The political class would rather work with Democrats than save American slaves living in Democrat fiefdom from the Leftist rod and whip. The political class doesn’t deserve a reboot either. A purification is a more realistic path.
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