Presidenting for Idiots: Bush's Farewell Speech

Presidenting For Idiots:
8 Years of Ineptitude Condensed to 15 Minutes!

Gallup Poll:

Bush had been averaging a 29% approval rating for the last quarter of his presidency up to now -- identical to his average approval ratings for each of the previous two quarters. Individual Gallup approval readings on Bush exceeded that figure several times in the past year, including a 33% reading in September. However, the current 34% approval score is Bush's highest since January 2008, and a sharp improvement from the 25% recorded right before the November elections.

Question: Why the INCREASE in approval ratings?

Answer: Americans have always been kind to failures when they're going out the door. Also: Americans justifiably agreed that stains on a dress were not as detrimental as stains on the conduct of an administration or bloodstains on a wall at Guantanamo. (Note: Clinton's approval ratings were at 66% when he left - the highest in the last fifty years.)

So, dismal approval ratings, empty seats at his last press conference (but happily filled by White House interns), a telling video of Bush being shunned at the G20 Summit, and now a farewell speech that was, at best, bland and self-patronizing.

As usual, Georgie's 15-minute oration was remarkable by what it DIDN'T say. It didn't address any of his OTHER "tough decisions": torture, warrantless wiretapping, refusal to testify before the 9/11 Commission, appointments of unqualified officials, abuse of executive privilege, etc.

He chose to quote Thomas Jefferson, a move which probably angered half of his Christian Right base. He told us that our air and water are cleaner, but didn't state that both are still substandard. He introduced past heroes of Katrina and Iraq, using them as distractions to the public's questions of incompetency. He lumped together entire populations as a "small band of fanatics". He extolled the sins of big business and padded them with warnings about isolationism.

"Above all, I thank the American people for the trust you have given me"

If any trust was given, it was blind trust in a president who was exceptionally secretive and who never paid attention to what the public was telling him - through polls, the media and public protests.

C-Span had people call in with their responses and to keep it "fair" the callers had to tell their party affiliation (Republican, Democrat, Independent). Some of those responses:

"I loved his reference to 'Good and Evil'"

"He lied"

"[He] Supported American ideals"

"Bad state of denial... should get some therapy."

"He doesn't really know what he's talking about"

"A fool and a liar - hides behind Presidential privilege"

"Believe he was anointed by God."

"Good Riddance to George Bush"

Below is a Wordle created out of George Bush's speech. This consists of the top 150 words repeated, with the most repeated put in the largest print. "America" would be obvious, but the software (NOT me), chose to place it outside the group of words entirely. When you click on the wordle, you'll see a large, readable rendition of it. The "America" looks as if it were expelled from the rest of the group. This is only right and proper: Bush always expelled the American people from the room of world politics. And notice how bland the words seem. Take them out of context and you realize the words for what they are: buzz words. Hollow buzz words.

Just a thought.

Wordle: Bush's Farewell Speech: How America Was Treated" style="border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); padding: 4px;">

Slouching Towards Nuremburg: Bush Might Not Live in Dallas Very Long - Or Crawford - Or The U.S.

Bush's "Golden Years" May Be Numbered

Three things have come to light in the very last days of the Bush regime:

1. Judge Susan Crawford stated (today) that the U.S. definitely used torture in the case of Al Queda's Mohammed al-Qatani at Guantanamo

2. Former Guantanamo guard, Chris Arendt, is now able to talk singularly to the media.

3. Both Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) intend to push for full investigations into the Bush Administration for war crimes.

This is not a case of "let bygones be bygones" or "Forgive and Forget"

This IS a case for accountability.

This IS a case for JUSTICE.

Out of the Mouths of Babes: Gitmo Itself Was Torture!

When You Care Enough To Send The Very Best

...Especially the young, the struggling, and the poor.

(from The BBC):

A former guard at the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay has spoken in his first television interview about the brutality he witnessed to inmates.

Chris Arendt told the BBC what he saw amounted to ''torture'' and that some of his fellow guards were so violent as to be ''psychotic.''

Chris Arendt's interview on the BBC about . the abuses at Guantanamo (Sorry I couldn't imbed the video.)

Arendt enlisted in the army at 17. He was stationed at Gitmo when he was 19. in January of 2004. From his testimony at the Winter Soldier Hearings:

I was 17 years old when I joined the United States Army National Guard in Michigan. My family had been displaced and I was living with friends and I decided to join the military because I had no other options. My family was poor, I was poor, and I wanted to go to school. I was promised a significant amount of money for this purpose--which I have yet to receive.

He went on to say that just being interred at Gitmo was (to him) torture. You can read Arendt's entire testimony here.

This all sounds so familiar. Yep, it's Abu Ghraib all over again. Only this time the torture was sanctioned by the highest ranking politicos in the United States. The prison guards who were exposed in the Abu Ghraib Prison torture were from poor families and most had signed up with the National Guard in order to go to college. Some were from West Virginia. Can you imagine an 18 year-old from Appalachia who's never even seen another county let alone another country handling prisoners in Iraq?

Tomorrow, President George W. Bush will address the nation in a "farewell" speech. He might touch on the subject of torture (he's definitely stupid enough to do it). Think of Chris Arendt's testimony. Think of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Think of poor kids who have never experienced another place or culture promised money and an education if they enlist. Think of them ordered to torture other human beings.

Just a thought.

Stuffed With Staffers: George's Press Conference Had Extras In The Seats!

On Thursday, are they going to rent millions of televisions and turn them on to improve the ratings?

(By Dana Milbank, Washington Post)

Tuesday, January 13, 2009; Page A03

The White House had high expectations for yesterday's final, historic news conference. "ONE CORRESPONDENT PER ORGANIZATION," proclaimed the bulletin sent to reporters. "STANDING ROOM ONLY FOR NON-SEAT HOLDERS." But when the appointed hour of 9:15 a.m. arrived, the last two rows in the seven-row briefing room were empty, and a press aide told White House interns to fill those seats.

And they were probably told to remove their shoes. This situation brings home one point: Bush's White House was theater. It was showmanship. It was a stage extravaganza wrapped up within a movie and covered by a circus.

Ziegfield, Cecil B. DeMille and P.T. Barnum would have been proud!

Just a thought.

Goodbye, Fantasyland: Bush Gets Emotional, The Press Gets Delusional Crap!

"Hey! Didn't I Just See A Unicorn?"

The end-of George's-reign press conference went from sub-prime to Disney fantasy. The only thing missing was Tinker Bell.

Some annotated gems:

On Katrina:

Gesturing and speaking with feeling, he said, "Don't tell me the federal response was slow when there were 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed," he said. "Has the reconstruction been perfect? No. Have things happened fairly quickly? Absolutely."

Bush is thinking in Neverland Time: "fairly quickly" meaning "not yet." People can't afford to rebuild anything now. The only reconstruction effected has come with the aid of people like Brad Pitt and journalists like Anderson Cooper. Bush had nothing to do with it.

On popularity:

"In terms of the decisions that I had made to protect the homeland, I wouldn't worry about popularity,"

He only listened to people when they were wire-tapped.

On immigration:

And so my point was, is that our party has got to be compassionate and broad-minded.

Huh?!? He's dragging out the "compassionate conservatism" crap again. That's sooo ancient history. Conservatives broad-minded? Narrow-minded, yes. Broad-minded? In your dreams, George!

The economy:

In terms of the economy, look, I inherited a recession, I am ending on a recession. In the meantime there were 52 months of uninterrupted job growth.

With 52 months of stagnant wages.

On controversy:

You know, Presidents can try to avoid hard decisions and therefore avoid controversy. That's just not my nature.

So that's why he didn't want to testify before the 9-11 committee.

On America's image:

I strongly disagree with the assessment that our moral standing has been damaged. It may be damaged amongst some of the elite, but people still understand America stands for freedom, that America is a country that provides such great hope.

The "elite" include half of the world. The only country that really liked a visit from him was Albania, the wonder of the Balkans.

(On retirement)

I'm a Type A personality, you know, I just -- I just can't envision myself, you know, the big straw hat and Hawaiian shirt sitting on some beach.

Would that he be on a beach - at St. Helena. His stupidity must be stranded on a desert isle: George meet Gilligan.

Just a thought.

Mars Hill Megachurch: A Blankety-blank Macho Jesus Theology

Now It's The M****r F****n' Church of Tinsel Face!

Where Jesus is not a "Sky Fairy"
(from New York Times, Jan. 6, 2009 -
Who Would Jesus Smack Down? by Molly Worthen)

“Pastor Mark, is masturbation a valid form of birth control?”

Driscoll doesn’t miss a beat: “I had one guy quote Ecclesiastes 9:10, which says, ‘Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.’ ” The audience bursts out laughing. Next Pastor Mark is warning them about lust and exalting the confines of marriage, one hand jammed in his jeans pocket while the other waves his Bible. Even the skeptical viewer must admit that whatever Driscoll’s opinion of certain recreational activities, he has the coolest style and foulest mouth of any preacher you’ve ever seen.

Pastor Mark Driscoll preaches hellfire and brimstone with old Calvinist theology: you know, the no matter what you do on earth, good or bad, you're pre-destined to go to heaven or hell kind of theology. He's in Seattle.

Seattle, please keep him there.

His homophobic, misogynistic rhetoric packs in the creme de la creme of skinheads, goths and bad-assed youth that Seattle can come up with. He's reviled by both ends of the Christian church yard stick: the Right hates his cursing while the Progressives hate his Calvinist, hellfire theology.

The mainstream church, Driscoll has written, has transformed Jesus into “a Richard Simmons, hippie, queer Christ,” a “neutered and limp-wristed popular Sky Fairy of pop culture that . . . would never talk about sin or send anyone to hell.”

After Cowboy churches, Prosperity church-stadiums, basement churches, "unchurched" churches with skateboard parks (Rick Warren), now comes the church of the Blessed Blankity-Blanks.

Question: after almost 2000 years, can't these guys get it right?

Just a thought.

Even Christofascists Hate Coulter!

Dumb and Dumber - Which Is Which?

This is one for the books: Ann Coulter hates Mike Huckabee and Mike Huckabee hates her back! While on his Fox show Huckabee took Coulter to task about the things she's said about him:

"He's a stupid Christian, he's easily led," she said of Huckabee in December 2007. In another clip, she complained, "I don't think he's very bright. That's why they like him. He's their version of an evangelical. They'd like him better if he still weighed 600 pounds. That would be perfect."

Yes, Ann, Huckabee IS stupid. Christofascism is stupid. As a Christofascist yourself would know that. You're an Elmer Gantry and Huckabee is an Elmer Fudd trying to be a Gantry. However, you called some of your own readers/supporters stupid. That is VERY stupid. And about the 600 lb joke, Ann: Huckabee's gaining it back.

You should have waited a while.

Just a thought.

NOTICE: Ann Coulter - every time - wearing a short, tight skirt and a long, tighter face.