Just say, "Bush's FaultTM".
Posted on 04/22/2013 6:32:25 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
George W. Bush: ‘No need to defend myself’ By Jonathan Easley - 04/22/13 07:51 AM ET
Former President George W. Bush said he feels “no need to defend himself” over the high-profile decisions that marked his two terms in office, saying he will leave those judgments to history.
“There's no need to defend myself,” Bush said in an interview with USA Today. “I did what I did and ultimately history will judge.”
Bush, along with President Obama and former Presidents Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Jimmy Carter, will be on hand to open the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas on Thursday.
Bush described the center as “a place to lay out the facts” behind his major policy decisions, including the decision to go to invade Iraq after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, not as a place that will explain or defend the actual policies.
Visitors to the library will be able to assess “the decisions that I had to make and the recommendations I received” at a “decision points theater,” according to Bush. In addition to the Iraq war and troop surge, the theater will focus on his handling of the 2008 financial collapse and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
In an interview conducted before last Monday’s Boston Marathon bombings, Bush said terrorism should still be a primary concern for the federal government.
“It's apparent that time is quickly dimming our memories,” Bush said of 9/11. “Evil exists still in the form of people who murder innocent people to advance a point of view.”
“The lessons of 9/11 are as profound today as they were then,” he added.
Bush has taken up painting in his private time – a fact that became known after a hacker exposed some of his private emails. The former president said it helps to keep him “mellow,” and that he’s content in his new life outside of public view.
“I'm happy to be out of the limelight. I truly am,” he said. “My life is obviously much simpler than it was in the past, but in many ways the simplicity creates contentment.”
“Some people get confused about my desire not to have the klieg lights shining on me, but eight years is plenty to be in the lights,” he said.
In an interview last week, the former president also expressed hopes that his brother, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) would run for president.
Asked if the nation was “ready for another Bush” in the Oval Office, he responded “That’s for Je to figure out.”
“I would hope that people would judge, if Jeb were to run, on his merits and his track record,” said Bush, adding “I hope he will run.”
His brother Jeb Bush has said he would weigh a 2016 GOP presidential bid and is seen as a prime contender for the nomination.
I’ll never forget that. The man has your back.
He didn’t go to Maggie’s funeral. That tells me what he really believes.
You mean, like those of us who say that Bush’ failure to “defend his self” might have helped foster a national impression that everything conservative, including free enterprise itself, is to blame? (which, by the way, is absolutely the result of his and Rove’s new tone “do not defend” strategy.
Anyone who still harbors illusions about the Bush Klan has as many problems as they do-maybe more.
And I don’t miss tbem.
Excellent analogy.
He left the field and pulled his team off the field.
Then, as the opposition proceeded to run up the score to 5000 to zero, he said nothing... apparently assuming that the people who were depending on him would understand that although he believed that he was too dignified to defend himself from the attacks of his mortal enemies, we could all rest assured that history would vindicate him.
I don't get that, and as far as I can tell that's one of the things that's left us in the terrible situation we're in.
That and his position on border control and security.
I sort of agree with him.
As Hillary would say, espcially now, “what difference would it make?”
To continue to argue or bicker over any nitpick points of the progressive left? Eh...America chose. America in her greatest moment of ignorance chose poorly.
Frankly, we all saw it, we all knew it and the GOP failed at preventing/defending against it! McCain or Hussein ...yeah that was Bush’s fault?
No, Bush had some of the most difficult years in the White House I’ve seen in a living President. No, he is history...literally. It isn’t up to him to now write it or explain it or defend it. It is up to those who choose to write it.
I admire president bush and his service. I think his critics are jaded and ill informed.
Not an ounce of “street fighter” in any Bush.
Let us praise the Bushes: Dukakis, Gore and Kerry would have been worse.
Recovering from back surgery.........
Even worse, very little good judgement about how his actions might affect our future. Bush created the car of the Security State, part by part. Then Obama sat down and turned the key.
Bush is probably a nice man, but he was a disaster as a president.
yep
His legacy will be as ‘Bipartisan Bush’ if history shows how blatantly corrupt and incompetent the liberal establishment was, and how others chose to enable them.
Compromise with liberals, you get liberal policies.
Compromise with Democrats, you get Democrat policies.
Warnings to heed for some but acceptable/desirable to the Republican establishment.
Although I know where you're coming from.....what this country is looking for is a leader. Not a celebrity who's in it for the perks.
i think he is right... and it is biblical... Obama defends himself all the time and comes across as a thin-skinned whiner...
1) While standing in the ashes of the 9-11 devastation surrounded by the bodies of nearly 3000 innocent incinerated American Civilians, he gave his Islam is a Peaceful Religion speech.
2) After sending US troops to Iraq to deliver a deserved dose of Yankee Justice, he allowed the imposition of onerous rules of engagement - the kind of tripe we thought we had left behind in Viet Nam.
3) At the point the U.S. military was about to re-enact Sodom and Gomorrah on Fallujah - a nest of Baathist monsters after they butchered three American contractors, he blinked and stopped the operation.
4) He converted what should have been a punitive war against Muslim states which threatened us into a useless prolonged occupation which raised frightful casualties in a naive and idiotic attempt to bring democracy to a collection of fanatic tribesmen who are wedded to an Islamic philosophy.
5) He failed to secure any kind of remunerative benefit to the US from Iraqi oil for all the blood and money spent in removing the Saddam Hussein party from power.
6) He looked the other way as an ARMY of illegal Mexicans and South American national poured over our borders virtually unopposed.
7) He failed to take any action against the Vicente Fox administration for actively promoting this invasion.
8) He stated he would veto an English as an Official Language Bill should it reach his desk and stated he WOULD sign an “assault rifle ban”.
9)He failed to target Islam as a named threat against our national security within our own borders.
10) He established the Department of Homeland Security - a totally unnecessary law-enforcement division at the urging of the Democrats, which is now being converted, under his successor into a kind of domestic SS complete with a large arsenal and light armored vehicles.
11) He supported and signed an unconstitutional “Patriot Act” which does little if anything to target Islamic terrorists in the US while attacking our basic constitutional rights.
12)He appointed a pro-abortion, anti-Second Amendment Attorney General
13) He attempted to put his personal attorney - an individual with no prior experience as a constitutional scholar on the bench and when thwarted, saddled us with that phony Roberts as Chef Justice INSTEAD of appointing a PROVEN conservative like Scalia or Thomas.
14) He spend Tax dollars frivolously on numerous projects contributing to our debt problem.
George W Bush created an environment which led to the Marxist Obama. His Daddy destroyed Reagan's legacy.
I hope I never see another one of these damn globalist, pro-Muslim, pro-Illegal Alien, anti-COnstitutionalist Bush elitists in Federal Office - at ANY level.
2) By not defending yourself... you left those of us that stood by you in your/our darkest hours... you left us hanging in the wind. By not defending yourself and your administration... you... by proxy... did not defend us.
3) You created the America that we are dealing with today. You and the gop so pissed Americans off... so angered those in the center... the low information voters... and some on the right that they either gave up and/or refused to vote or switched to the dim party and were lost to obama. karl rove was the architect.
4) Your father was a progressive failure and you were a progressive president and your family is progressive and your father started the “New World Order" crap... he brought it into mainstream American politics.
5) NO MORE BUSHES... your family has already damaged America enough... no clintons... kennedys or Bushes ever again. PS... your brother jeb sucks worse than you and your dad... he is nothing more than an open borders... “new world order” drone.
LLS
It is well deserved criticisms, sprinkled with thanks for what he did correctly. Unless the First Amendment is killed... we will speak out against progressives... even if they are named Bush.
LLS
The meaning of the word “compromise” to a liberal, commie democrat is “You agree with eveything I say and no rebuttle”
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