At President-elect Barack Obama's request, George W. Bush invited George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter to a luncheon at the White House today. It was the first time since 1981 that all living presidents have been together at the White House.
"I just want to thank the president for hosting us," Barack Obama said. "All the gentlemen here understand both the pressures and possibilities of this office," her continued. "For me to have the opportunity to get advice, good counsel and fellowship with these individuals is extraordinary."
President Bush responded by saying, "I want to thank the president-elect for joining the ex-presidents for lunch, even though he's not quite a member of that club yet."
"One message that I have and I think we all share is that we want you to succeed, whether we're Democrat or Republican, we care deeply about this country," Bush said. "All of us who have served in this office understand that the office itself transcends the individual."
Even the president's brother, Jeb, had a message to encourage bipartisanship for the president-elect and asked Republicans to go easy on the new president:
"Don't target the new president with the same kind of partisan attacks that he said Democrats had hurled unfairly at his brother -- attacks that he summed up as "Bush-hating."
"The opposition should be about ideas, and not what my brother suffered through in the last eight years," he said. "I don't wish that on President Obama."
Bush said he had been impressed so far with Obama's appointments and called the president-elect someone who is "smart, disciplined, not rash."
Jeb's forgetting that the country was solidly behind his brother after 9/11. George W. Bush had a 90% approval rating--that means a whole lot of Democrats were pulling for his success and supported his incursion into Al Qaeda's base camps in Afghanistan.
Even when GWBush took the country to war in Iraq, the country was still overwhelmingly behind him. It was only after Americans saw how disasterously the war was run, learned of the deceptions carried out by the administration in getting the Congress and American people to support it, and then Bush's stubborness in sticking with a losing strategy that they began to withdraw their support from him and his administration.
Some people call that bashing, others call it the exercise of freedom of speech in a democracy.
Bush's approval ratings went below 50% after he won re-election, (which was post-Katrina, another disaster) and he never recovered. He leaves office as one of the most unpopular presidents in post-war history, not really caring what history will say about him since, as he so crassyly put it, we'll all be dead.
Shakespeare wrote:
And oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.
And oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.
3 comments:
GW Bush made gracious statements, as he often has in such situations like this.
In contrast, Jeb sounded a bit peevish and partisan.
(Actually, what Jeb says reminds me a little bit of what another Presidential brother said. Roger Clinton said that it was un-American to speak critically of Bill Clinton).
I love it. There was a Bushism in the story.
Wow, Jeb is sneakier than Shrub. He managed to make a shrill, partisan attack while pretending to be against shrill, partisan attacks.
Post a Comment