Associated Press
Remember him?
Three years after Bill Clinton left the White House in January 2001, the 2004 Democratic candidates were tripping over each other to connect themselves to the nation's 42nd president. I remember one September 2003 debate in which literally every Dem running for the party's nomination said they were the rightful heir to the Clinton legacy.
Al Sharpton, after a while, apparently couldn't take it anymore. "I know that within the next hour we'll say that Bill Clinton walked on water," he joked.
We're at a comparable point now with regards to George W. Bush -- three years after a two-term president left office, his party is looking to nominate a challenger to an incumbent. Dems in 2004 couldn't stop referencing Bill Clinton, but in 2012, Republicans prefer to pretend the Bush presidency simply never happened.
Emily Heil ran a report a few weeks ago, noting that after 16 major debates for the GOP presidential field, Bush's name had only come up "a pitiful 56 times." (By comparison, Reagan's name was uttered 221 times.)
Given that Americans still blame Bush, not Obama, for the current economy, it's not unreasonable to think Republicans should be pressed a little more on whether, and to what extent, they agree with the GOP leader who was in office just three years ago.
Fortunately, as NBC's Mark Murray noticed, this week's debate offered a change of pace.
So far during this Republican presidential primary season, discussion of George W. Bush and his policies has been almost non-existent.
But at last night's GOP debate, He Who Must Not Be Named -- Bush -- was named by the candidates or moderator nine times.
And his presence over the debate was even bigger: Almost every heated exchange invoked, one way or another, policies, endorsements, or legislation from the Bush era.
No Child Left Behind. That infamous "Bridge to Nowhere." TARP. The 2001 airline bailout. The 2002 steel bailout. Even the 2004 Specter-vs.-Toomey primary.
This was long overdue. We're still living with the consequences of Bush-era policies, so it's only fair that his would-be Republican successors would start exploring this record in more detail.
That said, the nature of this exploration wasn't exactly encouraging.
Bush and Bush-era GOP policies came up far more often in this week's debate, but in each instance, this was used as a cudgel to beat down other candidates for being insufficiently right-wing. As Mark Murray added:
With Mitt Romney highlighting and criticizing Rick Santorum's Senate record, perhaps it was inevitable that votes in the Bush era would receive a more thorough examination last night than in previous debates.
Still, all of last night's criticism of policies and endorsements from 2001 through 2008 -- some of which weren't all that controversial at the time -- reflects how much more conservative the Republican Party has become since the man who billed himself as the "compassionate conservative" sat in the Oval Office.
Quite right. We've reached the point in Republicans politics at which GOP candidates are considered too liberal if they sided with the Bush/Cheney administration on most key areas of domestic policy.
Indeed, as Jon Ward added, Rick Santorum felt the brunt of these criticisms because he was, by 2012 standards, too loyal to the conservative Republican president in office during his congressional career.
The message to the American electorate is therefore rather striking: "Vote Republican in 2012: We won't be moderate like that Bush guy was."
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It's striking to note how far to the right the entire Republican Party has shifted in just a few short years. George W. bush is now a bleeding heart liberal, his policies -- which most modern Republicans gleefully voted for or supported -- to be talked down in the same vein as if it were Obamacare. The entire GOP has left the old establishment en masse to follow the Tea Party and the remaining core of the party. To these people, railing against the "dangers of contraception" is a normal debate to have. http://www.sunstateactivist.org
Is the GOP definition of to be a moderate , to be Dick Cheney's puppet?
I don't blame Bush. He was just a puppet. I blame Cheney and the republican Congress. I also blame democrats who allowed themselves to be goaded into going to war and limiting freedom.The patriot act and homeland security still exist. Detainees still are denied fair and speedy trials. We are still sitting on our hands as America slips away.
But toss in a little sex ala anti-contraception , add in a touch of arrogant stupidity and people take notice---for now. Will we become numb to outrageous legislation? Will we get so revolted we simply tune out?
What would you expect from a party that proposes TARP, allows it to pass, while calling it the worst waste of money ever, then defends the banks for incredible bonuses to their CEO's? Or a party that insists on basing federal funding on standardized tests, while criticizing the federal government for mandating uniformity? It's not just flip-flopping. It's an absurd willingness to take opposite positions at the same time.
I swear I used to know a word for that.
I suspect a Democrat's wet dream would be to have Rick Santorum running for president as the GOP nominee and openly comparing himself to George W. Bush.
In fact, the four still-standing wanna-be's are heavy into destroying each other by claiming no one can trust the others - which Matt Taibbi likened yesterday to the last stage of a seriously delusional paranoid illness. (www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/arizona-debate-conservative-chickens-come-home-to-roost-20120223) "... the conservative passion for divisive, partisan, bomb-tossing politics is threatening to permanently cripple the Republican party. They long ago became more about pointing fingers than about ideology, and it's finally ruining them."
With each step further down the rabbit hole, the Republicans have left the light and embraced the darkness that comes with their nihilistic efforts to bring down this sitting president!
Now, liberal simply means anything they deem wrong, or neutral in their quest to reign supreme once again. Their rhetoric is echoing through the deep canyons of their own minds (FZ)! -Kevo
You go, Kevo! With that FZ reference..
True Socialists circle like buzzards. This is their chance. As chaos prevails they will enter the schools and pass out literature not seen since WWII. They will select a charismatic leader and call it all a labor movement as they court the wealthy aristocrats. They....
Nahhh not in my country.
The GOP has move so far to the reich that it's scarey! And yet, they still support the same failed policy decisions that helped to just about push this nation over the cliff! The reich talks about "personal responsibility & accountability" - but only when it comes to my sex life, not about themselves or the policies that they continue to give blind allegiance to that have failed this nation for the past 30+ years!!
Nothing operates in a vacuum, and yet the GOP would have you believe that "it's not the failed policies - you just aren't being responsible for yourself"; and no one personifies that obtuse blindness better than George W., the worst little Manchurian Candidate E-V-E-R!! The GOP is drunk on their own power, have no regard for the 99% of Americans that they are supposed to represent, and for that reason they should not be voted back into positions of power - they need to be medicated and forced to understand their treason to America and working Americans!!
So, what's actually further right than fascism, gender superiority, religious extremism and governed morality?
They can't really admit that they think Bush is the greatest thing since canned beer, but there is not doubt that that's exactly what they believe. He really is their model of a great, conservative American and they would love nothing more to be able to continue all of his policies. Especially the Hoover era economic ones. Despite being four solid cases of mental illness, with Obama Derangement Syndrome on top of it all, the sad members of this Republican field do have enough of a grasp on reality not to run on a platform of "If you liked Bush you're going to love me." Even though that's exactly what they think.
Bush. The Role Model That Dare Not Speak Its Name.
The GOP has become a suicide cult.
I'm not drinking that kool aid, ever.
Any Republican who runs for office cannot run fast enough from Bush. Those in Congress voted for his agenda and those who aspire to office voted for him and supported his policies. Bush's mess was caused by Republican complicity in Congress that gave him most everything he wanted passed. This doesn't excuse Dems who voted for the damaging policies, but they did not control Congress from 1994 until 2007. Republicans need to be held accountable; it is not enough to say Bush was not a true conservative because that does not excuse their votes. They can run, but they can't hide.
Who grants absolution for the lies these moral midgets spew? I thought a conscience was not something you could set aside when convenient. There must be a separate set of commandments for these posers.
That headline was good for a prolonged chuckle this morning, and thanks for that.
Compassionate conservative - still the best example ever produced to explain the meaning of "oxymoron".
Lordy. That picture almost made me hurl.
When the inevitable economic crash came (due to Republican crony capitalism & class warfare on the poor & working class), it became clear that Bush the Lesser had obviously betrayed Conservatism.
To the true believers, Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed.
Ergo, Bush and Cheney ("Reagan proved deficits don't matter,") were moderates, not true Conservatives.