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George W. Bush exhibits his paintings — 34 Comments

  1. I missed the segment. My wife saw it, and said it was great. Of course she loves the Bush’s, especially Grandma.

    Won’t it be ironic if GWB is recognized as a Renaissance Man before all is said and done?

    I think Laura uses a fair amount of make-up, but does it very well in my unsophisticated opinion. I have always admired her style and grace; and especially after learning that becoming a public figure was so difficult and distasteful to her. She sacrificed for his career, and to represent our country; but, she grew immeasurably with the effort.

  2. That story says a lot about Putin. Narrow mind + will to power. Bush should be happy he didn’t engage him in a pissing contest. Like, an actual pissing contest.

  3. Wow, the decency of George W and the grace of Laura really come through in this story narrated by their talented daughter.

  4. What a charming interview and I especially like his animal portraits. But the leadership portraits are fascinating.

    I forgot that the office of President of the United States of America used to be a diginified one. And that First Lady was really a title for a true lady.

    It has been five long, disgusting years with the Obamas.

  5. We’re only allowed filtered glimpses of first ladies. But during my lifetime I cannot remember a First Lady with more grace and dignity than Laura Bush. GWB is a very lucky man indeed.

  6. I miss them both.
    We watched a part of a program on conspiracy theories this evening. I think it originated in the US. It talked about the Kennedy assassination, Diana’s death, Roswell, and 9/11 and gave some analysis about why people believe the conspiracies. But then one of the “expert” had to ananolgize these conspiracies with why Bush believed the story about WMD and Saddam. Talk about clinging to a conspiracy. No matter what Bush reveals about himself through videos like this, some people will never open their minds to the real Bush or the real problems he faced.

  7. Thanks for posting this wonderful glimpse into W and his family. The Bushes are a class act and the contrast with the current regime could not be more stark.

  8. expat: “But then one of the “expert” had to ananolgize these conspiracies with why Bush believed the story about WMD and Saddam. No matter what Bush reveals about himself through videos like this, some people will never open their minds to the real Bush or the real problems he faced.”

    If you have some time and patience for repetition, you might appreciate this comment exchange between “Zachriel” and me about the Iraq enforcement, starting here:

    http://neoneocon.com/2014/03/25/obama-pay-no-attention-to-that-russia-behind-the-curtain/#comment-752295

  9. kit said: “I forgot that the office of President of the United States of America used to be a diginified one. And that First Lady was really a title for a true lady.It has been five long, disgusting years with the Obamas.”

    Long and very disgusting. Diversity comes at a cost but is without benefit.

    The Obamas are truly the symbol of Affirmative Action, vulgarians given degrees and poured into good clothes.

  10. Neo: “as well as Bush’s articulate and fluid manner of speaking.”

    President Bush was an effective public speaker in person. It was odd that as President his presence came across so differently on television.

  11. Neo said: “Gone is his studied carefulness, the fear of making an error that his enemies could pounce”.
    Must we really need to be reminded W was seen by us through the lenses of the never-respectful MSM, which pounced even when there were no errors? I was in a quite small group to whom he spoke in 2004, and he was fluid, eloquent, charming and sincere (no media present).

  12. Eric, that was awesome. Zachriel has certain similarities to the grassy knoll and fire doesn’t melt steel crew. The guy in the program I saw seemed ready to sign up to the same team, ie, Blame Bush. Fortunately, Bush seems to have the integrity and class to ignore the ignorants. But we still have to listen to them, and it does get tiring.

  13. All I see is KGB, KGB, KGB…

    As for his soul… it needs to come into the light.

  14. God Bless George W. Bush and his beautiful, classy Laura. The right man at a huge historical moment. Imagine Obama, Al Gore or John Kerry in the presidency on 9-11-2001. Just look at the absence of leadership, executive ability, willingness to stick-to-it and WORK, moral clarity and Balls for 5+years now. F***. Merely F***.

  15. Think how much money limited edition prints of his works could be sold for.

    Knowing George, the money would go to wounded soldiers; something like his bike ride.

  16. Eric, I thought I stayed current in looking at the comment number in prior blog posts here at Neo’s, but I completely missed that the one you linked to had comments I hadn’t read. That exchange between you and Zachriel was superb in its range and strength. The Z-guy must have been shocked to have encountered you, with your collection of facts and your calm tenacity!

    The norm seems to be that, once a troll is recognized, the argumentariat at many conservative blogs turns to a snarky joke or two, and then they pretty much ignore the interloper’s existence, which is one way to fight trolls. If a sortie is mounted against the troll, most of the time the enemy silently quits the field.

    But not always. So, Eric, the eloquence of your actions carried the power of your message about activism.

    There’s a lot to think about.

  17. expat, Minta Marie Morze,

    Thanks.

    Correcting the false premises is worth the effort. Kudos to you if you read the whole thing. If you didn’t have the forebearance to read the whole repetitive exchange, I suggest skipping ahead to the last 2 or 3 sets.

    I preferred Zachriel’s stubbornness. It gave me the chance to expand the scope of my response.
    More than that, Zachriel’s insistence that Saddam was in “substantive compliance” based on a conflation of the CIA investigation with the compliance test, and his disregard of the Lacy article did me a favor. It induced me to review the Duelfer report. It had been a while.

    Since my take on the Iraq enforcement is legalistic in focus on the operative enforcement procedure (presumed guilt, weapons and non-weapons obligations, burden of proof, standard of compliance, etc.), I tend to downplay the CIA investigation as, while informative, after the fact and therefore irrelevant to the compliance test that Saddam failed at the decision point.

    I knew the Duelfer report didn’t show what Zachriel believed it showed, but I’d forgotten how strongly the Duelfer report corroborates that Iraq was in violation of its weapons obligations. I’m grateful for Zachriel reminding me.

    Notice also that, consistent with the boilerplate anti-OIF view, Zachriel utterly ignores the role of Saddam’s non-weapons obligations despite that President Bush had emphasized:

    And these resolutions are clear. In addition to declaring and destroying all of its weapons of mass destruction, Iraq must end its support for terrorism. It must cease the persecution of its civilian population. It must stop all illicit trade outside the Oil For Food program. It must release or account for all Gulf War personnel, including an American pilot, whose fate is still unknown.

    By taking these steps, and by only taking these steps, the Iraqi regime has an opportunity to avoid conflict.

    Although we’ve (prematurely) left Iraq, it’s more important than ever to set the record straight on the Iraq enforcement.

    As I’ve said before on Neo’s blog, patient zero for the wrong turn in US foreign policy is the false narrative of Operation Iraqi Freedom. What was at stake in Iraq for the US and the US-led liberal world order was greater than the 4 corners of Iraq. The premises of hegemonic American exceptionalism, international law enforcer and leader of the free world, and polar center of gravity defining the liberal world order were staked on the Iraq mission.

    We acted correctly with Iraq, yet in the West, the underlying premises of the Iraq policy have been made taboo. Stigmatizing the normal makes the normal abnormal and the abnormal normal. That’s the metastatic effect on US foreign policy of the false narrative of the Iraq enforcement. Therefore, correcting the dominant narrative of the Iraq enforcement is vital for re-normalizing US and Western foreign policy.

  18. Eric,

    I saw that Z brought up the outrageous Lancet-created lie that “100,000” died in Iraq, which has been repeatedly and exhaustingly debunked.

    I marvel at your patience. Though I’m guessing you rolled all that out for the benefit of the educable, not the ineducable Z.

    I think Evan Sayet is onto something — we need to attack their root premise. Otherwise, it’s worse than fighting the many-headed Hydra.

  19. Beverly: “I saw that Z brought up the outrageous Lancet-created lie that “100,000″ died in Iraq, which has been repeatedly and exhaustingly debunked.

    I marvel at your patience. Though I’m guessing you rolled all that out for the benefit of the educable, not the ineducable Z.”

    I don’t know how many people died in the post-war. I do know that following through on the credible threat of regime change was justified by Saddam’s failure to comply. I also know that Iraqis, Americans, and our allies together did their best to build the peace, defend the Iraqi people, and fight off a terrible insurgency, and succeeded.

    It didn’t seem that Zachriel expected my response. Perhaps that will be enough to jar him into considering the truth.

    You’re right, though, that he wasn’t the only audience I had in mind.

    I often find that supporters of the Iraq enforcement have accepted basic false premises, such as the common misconception that the US and UN held a burden of proof to demonstrate Iraq’s WMD, when in fact, Saddam held the entire burden of curing Iraq’s established and presumed guilt.

    This common misconception has led supporters to defend OIF with the irrelevant argument that Saddam shipped out his WMD stocks before UNMOVIC could find it. (Another common misconception is that UNMOVIC’s mission was to search for WMD in order to confirm Western intel, when in fact, UNMOVIC’s mission was testing Iraq’s compliance.) Some blame Bush and/or the UN for allowing Saddam too much time to get rid of evidence. (In fact, the Duelfer report mentions suspicious activity, but the CIA doesn’t know whether it was transportation of WMD stocks.)

    They don’t understand that the extra time was an opportunity for Saddam to cure Iraq’s guilt. We weren’t required to prove Iraq’s guilt because that was established at the outset.

    The reversal of the burden of proof also facilitates the selective reading of the Duelfer report often used to claim Iraq was compliant, when in fact, the Duelfer report is replete with findings corroborating that Iraq was in violation of its weapons obligations.

  20. Beverly, Eric and other individuals (not zombies) are free to do as they wish and as they can. Some specialize in certain things that others cannot.

    Letting the people who want to specialize in A, do A, while we do something else, is efficient.

    I, personally, specialize in smashing the Left’s face in when I see them, in one way or another. I don’t particularly like social authority.

  21. SO when Bush said he looked into Putin’s eyes and saw his soul, it didn’t really mean 100% positive the way some took it.

    It was just a speech modified by his handlers, based upon Bush’s experience and unwillingness to talk bad about other people.

    Like Sarah Palin, “handlers” really do a number on these hip shooters.

  22. Hussein’s line that “we are the ones we have been waiting for” was very funny when I heard it. To me, it signified that the Leftist alliance was going to start stomping people’s heads in, while the rest of America was taking a nap and calling sick for work.

    Now though, it has a greater irony. We are the ones we have been waiting for to save the nation. The nation won’t save itself, China and Russia won’t save this nation of America, the third class and sex enslaved immigrants won’t be saving the nation, and Republican political elites won’t be saving the nation. Not a single leader exists, is allowed to exist, because of this, that would save the nation.

    So all that leaves is the people themselves, the weak, the powerless, and the forgotten.

  23. Lady Bush has always fascinated. She’s got that wasp fairy queen look: steel gaze with a “I really know and like you” look.

    She’s a looker.

  24. The Bushes epitomize a middle-class ideal. Not in terms of wealth, of course, but in terms of lifestyle (adjusted to wealth), culture, and values.

  25. Eric
    It didn’t seem that Zachriel expected my response. Perhaps that will be enough to jar him into considering the truth.

    Fat chance of that. The Z-Team’s [there is a reason why Zachriel responds so fast and so often] best response to being gobsmacked with the facts is an exit. Example: Dr. Mercury at Maggie’s Farm pointed out to the Z-Team that it had contradicted itself on global warming. After that, the Z-Team stopped commenting at Maggie’s Farm- or greatly reduced its comments.

    For the Z-Team, “truth” is whatever aids the lefty agenda.

  26. Bill Jones:

    If Jonathan Jones, the author of that piece at the Guardian, had seen the Putin portrait and been told Barack Obama did it, he’d have been falling all over himself to praise it as a penetrating and sophisticated example of art and character insight.

  27. Another case in point of the current, relevant importance of setting the record straight on the Iraq enforcement:

    Note that the article “Bill Jones” links to pivots on “The comedy of a naive self-portrait of himself in the bath that got leaked on Twitter apparently helped humanise the man most responsible for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.”

    The Left continues to rely heavily on the false narrative of the Iraq enforcement as their primary foundational piece. This is why Zachriel has been stubborn in the aforementioned comment exchange. The Left needs their false narrative of the Iraq enforcement to dominate the zeitgeist.

    If you can knock out that load-bearing support in the zeitgeist, then the Left’s entire narrative, along with the real-world harmful policies that have been built on their false narrative, becomes much shakier.

  28. Neo Neo, one of the simplest disinformation ops is to tell a Leftist what he wants to hear, when in reality the facts are 180.

    Such as feeding a reporter news about torture and American atrocities in Iraq, then exposing the entire line as a setup for a guillible media, destroying the media’s authority.

    So many people that belong to the Leftist army, are like that, because they have little defense against propaganda.

  29. Neo,
    Imagine the reaction if Bush had carved Putin out of beeswax and put the skulpture in a jar of pee. Jones would have been first in line to see the work at a Saatchi exhibit, provided, of course, that the artist’s name was not revealed.

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