Bush! You Don’t Know What You Got Till It’s Gone

[DonViejo]

MICHAEL TOMASKY

In the time of Trump, the days when the GOP was just a war-waging, economy-wrecking party look pretty good by comparison.

Tuesday, we citizens will experience something rare—a George W. Bush sighting. Forty-three will set aside the oils and acrylics long enough to appear alongside President Obama in Dallas, at the memorial service for the five slain police officers.

The sight of Bush, especially under such a tragic circumstance that will have people yearning for any small sign of national unity, will make for some wistful “gosh, he wasn’t so bad in retrospect” columns. Come on. In most ways, he was that bad. I hardly have to list them, starting with the worst military decision in American history.

But he wasn’t bad in every single way, and you just have to conjure up the memory of Bush’s two or three good moments to realize how loco the post-Bush GOP has become and how much work needs to be done just to bring the GOP back to being where it was when Bush was in office, when it was still a plain old war-starting, economy-wrecking political party, without (most of) the open racism and paranoid sociopathy.

So a few examples. First, Bush’s visit to that mosque after the 9/11 attacks was gracious and leaderly. I have trouble thinking of a single Republican today who’d do such a thing. OK, I can think of a few senators who might instinctively be willing to do such a thing. But I doubt any of them would have the courage to risk the wrath of the base, the same base that of course gave the plurality of its votes this year to the candidate who promised a ban on Muslims entering the country. And remember, Trump said last November that the United States would have “absolutely no choice” but to close down some mosques. A disconcerting number of Republicans agree. A poll taken around that time found that 27 percent of Republicans favored shutting down all U.S. mosques.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/11/bush-you-don-t-what-you-got-till-it-s-gone.html

[HassleCat]

1. I have to agree with Trump on the mosques.

I do believe we should shut down some of them, revoke citizenship for their radical clerics, etc. We should do the same for right wing Christian nutbags like the people who run Westboro Baptist Church. We allow far too much in the name of freedom of religion.

[NWCorona]

2. I miss Bush but for different reasons

[Orsino]

3. I'll always remember the one decent job W did.

Speaking after the loss of the space shuttle crew, he was actually good.