Bush-Tracker.Org

Here were are, in the last hour of Bush’s presidency. Since I haven’t written much, I wanted to chronicle a bit of the last couple months, where still-President Bush is trying to write his own history, portraying himself in various flattering (at least more flattering than the American people see him) guises. Here are some quotes from them as well as the “final” press conference:

A retiring President George W. Bush, delivering the final and most introspective press conference of his long presidency, acknowledged today the several “mistakes” and “disappointments” of his tumultuous two terms in the Oval Office, yet voiced a defiant insistence that he made the choices necessary to defend the nation from threats that still persist today.

Asked about his many and most strident critics, Bush said, “You know, most people I see when I move around the country, they’re not angry, they’re not hostile… They’re civil… (Among the others, he said: “I don’t know why they get angry. I don’t know why they get hostile…. Presidents can try to avoid hard decisions and therefore avoid controversy… That’s just not my nature.

“In times, of war, people get emotional,” Bush said. “I’ve never spent a lot of time listening to the loud voices.”

“Clearly, putting ‘Mission Accomplished’ on an aircraft carrier was a mistake,” he said of the banner draped across the carrier in the Pacific where he landed in a fighter jet weeks after the invasion of Iraq to declare major military action completed.”

“Obviously some of my rhetoric was a mistake,” said Bush, who previously has voiced regret over threatening to find Osama bin Laden “dead or alive” or declaring of the nation’s enemies: “Bring it On.”

“There have been disappointments,”the president said. “Abu Graib (the abuse of U.S.-held prisoners in Iraq) was a huge disappointment…. Not having weapons of mass destruction (in Iraq) was a disappointment.”

While suggesting that he will step out of the limelight in retirement, Bush did allow that his “Type-A personality” may make that difficult. “I just can’t envision myself, you know, the big straw hat and Hawaiian shirt sitting on some beach,” said Bush, adding a voluble aside at the end of the remark — “particularly since I quit drinking.”

“I’ll wake up in Crawford on Wednesday morning… I expect I’ll make Laura coffee.”

(Full Link)

Interview with Larry King, CNN, Jan 15, 2009

King: Reagan once asked this, so we’ll ask it, are we better off today than we were eight years ago?

George Bush: One thing is for certain today, we understand the real dangers that we face. Eight years ago, it looked like the world was peaceful and everything was just fine in the economy. Then, we had a recession, then we had an attack and now we’ve had this financial meltdown.

…

King: Are we ever, ever going to find (Osama) bin Laden?

George Bush: Yes, of course. Absolutely. We have a lot of people looking for him, a lot of assets out there. He can’t run forever. Just like the people who allegedly were involved in the East African bombings, a couple of them were brought to justice recently.

King: Did we ever come close?

George Bush: I don’t know. I can’t answer that.

King: You don’t know.

George Bush: I really don’t know. I’m not trying to hide anything.

…

George Bush: I want to say it has been a huge honor to be president. I have enjoyed it. I’ve been amazed at the character of the American people.

(Full Link)

Interview with Charlie Gibson, ABC, Dec 1. 2008

“I think I was unprepared for war…”

“Presidents — one of the things about the modern presidency is that the unexpected will happen.”

(Full Link)

Interview of the President by Steve Scully, C-SPAN

December 18, 2008

“(B)eing the son of the President is much harder than being the President. I agonized for my dad. When they would say things about him that I didn’t think were fair, I agonized — because I love him so much…The President is a much different role and therefore, I mean, I understand it comes with the job when people say things about you. So we’ve got kind of a role reversal. My dad agonizes when he reads stuff about me… ”

“Self-pity is a horrible trait, and I’m confident all Presidents have been — have thought about saying, oh, why me, why do I have to carry this burden? And first of all, I don’t believe it is a burden to be President. I don’t believe there’s — it’s not a burden to deal with problems. But Lincoln keeps things in perspective… I mean, it was a tough time for Lincoln: 600,000 people died; he lost his son upstairs, Willie died in the White House; his wife was not happy. And yet, he was a man who stuck to principles and stayed strong, and died not having any earthly idea of where his standing would be in history. ”

Q: Is the transition too long?

THE PRESIDENT: No, no, no. Actually, I think it’s going to be good for me. I’m kind of an emotional guy anyway. I would hate to have the next to last and last day of the presidency be one giant hug-fest.

(Full Link)

Still-President Bush appeared before a group of his former bffs, at the American Enterprise Institute, the seemingly omnipresent conservative/free-market think tank. Now that he’s not doing much except sending the market into turmoil over whether he will or will not bailout the auto industry, he has time to publicly reflect upon a presidency that hasn’t even finished yet.

He prefaced his remarks with a singularly odd statement:

“Reflections by a guy who’s headed out of town…  An old sage at 62 … headed to retirement.”

And then moved on to other hallucinations, for instance:

“I came with the idea of changing the tone in Washington, and frankly didn’t do a very good job of it,” he said. (Link)

I don’t think the man gives himself enough credit, but perhaps that’s the point. He could at least take credit for some of the ass-licking culture of cronyism if he isn’t going to take the blame for the spiraling economic crisis.

But when your presidency has long ceased to be relevant, maybe it’s time to stop making sense as well (since you were never really good at it), and stick to what you do best: entertaining us…

When he isn’t dancing, he is still reminiscing about the presidency that isn’t over yet, as in his first post-relevancy interview with Charlie Gibson:

“I don’t spend a lot of time really worrying about short-term history,” he said to Gibson. “I guess I don’t worry about long-term history, either, since I’m not going to be around to read it.” Then he laughed, even though it wasn’t very funny. (Link)

As everyone has by now heard, we have been transported into some sort of weird parallel universe where it’s possible to get close enough to President Bush (when you can find him doing something Presidential) to throw a shoe at him… and then actually throw not one but TWO shoes at him. And all this before being thrown to the ground( I bet some Secret Service agents were caught right in the middle of falafel-sandwich-time when this happened). If the man is willfully neglecting to do any actually leading or governing, at least he must be spending time in the gym; his reflexes seem to be razor-sharp. But then they should be. If you personify an era of torture, illegal wiretapping, environmental negligence, and widespread economic hardship, you’re probably more than prepared to duck a pie, a shoe, or even a flaming bag of shit.

I’m betting we see a “throw a shoe at the man who cost you your job” booths at state fairs in 2009.

At this point the world is beyond buzzing about this, but I thought I’d offer a shot-by-shot recap:

For the full story and video, link here.

While the stock market tanked yet again and shares of the Big Three automakers plummeted overnight, the graduating students at Texas A&M were treated to a rare visit by the elusive creature known to us as our President, George W. Bush. He was seen delivering the University’s commencement address, despite not having much to offer in the ways of how to manage money, bring conflicts with others to a satisfactory close, or how to succeed on one’s own without relying on the successes of one’s progenitors.

“It’s always an honor to be introduced by the president of the United States,” Bush said. “Especially when he’s your dad.
“To those of you who have jobs lined up, congratulations,” he said, speaking to the 3,600 graduates gathered in Reed Arena for the address. “To those of you who are not entirely sure what comes next, I know what you’re feeling.” (Link)

Of course, the idea that the President could possibly be as nervous as, or truly empathize with a recent college graduate who is being plunged, upon graduation, into the barren future he has helped to create, probably got a chuckle or two from the crowd (the President is known for his sense of humor, if nothing else). They were probably merely thankful that he didn’t have any jokes to offer about moving back in with one’s parents, or how poor their timing is (and that maybe there’s a spot for them in the Air National Guard, heh heh).

Update: stocks of the Big Three automakers rebounded a little after the opening bell, due to word that the Fed would be backing the automakers until a new congressional sessions convenes in January, and that still-President Bush might reverse his decision to disallow use of the TARP funds for the automakers.

No word on whether still-President Bush is reconsidering other ill-fated decisions made during his presidency…

I’ve been sitting on this domain for a couple weeks, and had been sweating it out, trying to figure how to make up for the lost time… Do I recap the weeks and months that we’ve spent trying to figure out what the hell the Prez has in mind with his bailout program? Do I list all of the times he’s made trivial, lamer-than-your-typical-lame-duck appearances instead of trying to assure the American people that he’s not simply waiting it out?

If my grandparents were still alive, I’d ask them what to do and they’d have something interesting to say about shitty presidents, having lived through Herbert Hoover and all… But they’re not, and I can’t, so I do what I normally do: I ask the Google what kind of news on GW’s shenanigans it has for me.

I couldn’t have asked for anything more:

Like my aforementioned grandparents, I had caught the Google in a moment of wistful imaginings, longing for a time prior-to or long-after either man named George Bush trod into the White House. This confusion lasted only a moment… after that, the Google straightened its tie, cleared its throat, picked up the whiskey bottle off the floor, and jerked me back through time with some real news.

Dammit.