Letters to the Editor
MereMortal
Published Letters: 150 Editor's Choice: 19
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Bush's brain dead
[Read the article: The poisonous rhetorical legacy of Karl Rove]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]watching Rove on Meet the Press in London yesterday, I was struck by the following:
he had a fantastic aura of confidence and smugness in the opening part of the program. It was as if he was saying "I bet you suckers [democrats] didn't think I'd come out and defend my record" so soon. David Gregory gave him a preposterously easy ride.
It was clear how changeable was Rove's surface charm, he could wax lyrical about states, percentages and do all that nerdy electoral stuff that he's renowned for, but underneath his velvet gloves lay two iron fists.
When tackled on Iraq it was then that full extent of the intellectual incoherence of the Bush adminsitration's position came to the fore.
was the war conducted perfectly, No?
did we have to alter the plan , yes!
but
was getting rid of Saddam the right thing to do? absolutely it was!
and there it was in a nutshell, getting rid of Saddam has made life infinitely worse for the iraqis, the americans, the middle east and the whole world [I'm no fan of Saddam], and yet here we have Bush's brain telling us that it was definitely the right thing to do despite the herd of elephants in the room called 'Iraqi and American dead'
The iraqis have no medium term even prospects of being released from their hell...the trouble with saying that getting rid of Saddam was the right thing to do is that it's like turning a man on crutches into a paraplegic and then saying, was operating on this man [against his will] the right thing to do? absolutely it was. It's basically an insane position to hold.
His performance and Gregory's round Plame and Wilson was utterlly disgusting, just the kind of weasel nonsense you'd expect from someone as psychopathic as Rove.
I knew that when they ended MTP on a clip of Rove when younger that when they came back to him he'd say "boy, I had a lot of hair then", I just knew it, it's that hannibal lecter type moment, where to detract from the enormity of his crimes, he comes out with something perfectly charming and self-deprecating.
In the end, it just occured to me, a rational and fair minded person, could never look at Bush, Rove, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Gonzales et all, and decide that cometh the hour, cometh the man, these people not only inspired no confidence that they could steer the ship of state, but rather you couldn't think of a worse collection of human beings in one administration, as a qintuple[and more]-whammy it was hard to beat.
I enjoyed Cole's article, I'm appalled at the soft-soaping of Rove in the media, he taints everyone he comes into contact with, who gives him an easy ride, shame on you Gregory!
I was stuck at how unimpressive Rove was intellectually, he'd gotten away with his dirty tricks and his supposed legendary grasp of electoral politics and 'intellect' largely because the MSM had not given him the kicking he so richly deserved.
it's as if sitting there on MTP he'd morphed from Karl Rove master strategist into O.J Simpson-Rove the who had failed big time and whom nobody wanted to be seen associating with, his president's ratings had tanked and they lost congress, and the GOP is in tatters. It turns out that not only does Bush have no brain, neither does Rove. Come on Toto, it's time to go home.
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Bush has greatness?
[Read the article: Fantasy island]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I could see from watching Alexandra Pelosi's documentary 'journeys with George' following Bush around his 2000 campaign trail, that he wasn't without a certain charm at times. There is a memorable scene when it's his birthday and he comes across as at least capable of being affable.
but greatness? It was said that Fuhrer was very charming with his secretaries and took pains to discuss their more mundane concerns, It's perfectly possible to accept that however 'beastly' he'd been to others, the secretaries viewed him as likeable, and rightly so, as he had showed a softer side to them.
This is the nub, is it not? you can say what you like about a human being, most of us being people pleasers, are mightily impressed when the powerful deign to give us any time or show us kindness.
I rememember thinking that the world would never be the same again after seeing that the presidential candidate for '92 was playing the Sax on Jay Leno's show.
And here for me is the most interesting facet of what comes across so powerfully in Bush and his entourage. They were going to be different to Clinton, and they were. They reeked of a macho pre-watergate 1970s vibe, the GOP as anti-therapeutic, anti touchy-feely, lock-em-up, shoot-em-first , ask'em questions later.
That's what was so shocking, I thought that world had moved on, and this sort of stuff couldn't return, it was after all the new millenium but the public had 'sort-of' voted for a bunch of buttoned-up, hard-assed emotional neanderthals, emotional assholes even.
To paraphrase Hitchens, Bush is not great, no, not in any sense. The only thing they misundersestimated about him is what a colossal disaster would befall the republic from this word-mangling buffoon and his malevolent entourage and shady backers.