Posted on 06/18/2004 11:12:45 AM PDT by Theodore R.
Too Nice for His Own Good? Neil Cavuto Friday, June 18, 2004
I've discovered something in the Bush family genes that could, again, be their undoing. They're too nice.
Now I know how angry liberals will no doubt respond to my summation, but I stand by it. And here's why. Find me a public moment, any moment, when either George Bush I or George Bush II has really lit into his critics. About the most worked up I saw the old man get was on broccoli and how he hated it. I remember thinking then, "This boy's got some Italian in him!"
But alas, the anger was short-lived. Decency returned. Calmness prevailed. And a doomed election ensued. My point here is not to take sides in this electoral contest but to illustrate how well-intentioned people can end up getting the shorter end of the stick. The other day it caught me again, when President Bush was hosting Bill and Hillary Clinton at the White House for the official unveiling of their portraits. The president heaped it on, and I mean really heaped it on. He said the years had proven how good Bill Clinton was for this country, how much he had done for this country, how both Bill and Hillary were great parents to a teenager growing up in the White House, all but saying he could have used some of those same parenting skills for his own rebellious daughters. And he wasn't done.
He went on to commend Hillary as the "only U.S. senator whose portrait hangs in the White House." He complimented her style, her commitment and her devotion. He joked with Bill about bravely campaigning for George McGovern in, of all places, Texas. He got a laugh. He never got much else.
Not once did he bring up items like Whitewater, or Monica, or Vince Foster, or that inconvenient issue of Osama and what this prior president could have done or should have done. No, there was none of that. And to be sure, this decorous scene was not the occasion for that. I thought I'd leave well enough alone with this whole issue until Bill Clinton himself got up to speak.
He wasn't nearly so kind, and he wasn't nearly so generous. While he acknowledged the president's graciousness, he didn't pass along one compliment, not one kind tit-for-tat. I wasn't looking for him to praise George Bush . . . after all, they are political opposites. But, please! Couldn't you throw the guy a bone, Bill? Maybe acknowledge he responded well to terror after Sept. 11, or that he's kept us safe in this country since that day? Maybe mention something goofy, like commending the president for the nicknames he gives those pesky White House reporters? Anything?
No. Nada. Zippo. Zilch-a-rino. Perhaps the contempt for this president from this former president is so acute, so intense, that he can't find the words - apparently any words - to say anything nice. Frankly, I find it classless. But who am I to judge? This guy was elected to two terms as president, gets 10 million smackers to write his memoirs as president, and gets a pile of change to do speeches precisely because he was president.
Maybe Bill had his reasons to hold tight on the compliments. Maybe he's planning to unload on this present White House occupant in that book, or in this upcoming campaign or in all those speeches. I know that's the game, but if things are that tacky, that political and that shallow, I just wish everybody played the game.
It seems to me President Bush is not, or cannot. Believe me, he's no softie. He's tough on terror abroad, but he seems to go light on opponents here. After all, it's not as if Bill Clinton wants him re-elected (actually, maybe he does, to save room for his wife's candidacy in 2008, but that's another issue), so why not be a little more digging, and provide a little more ribbing?
I'd have loved to hear the president say something like, "When you weren't chasing interns, you were looking out for all of us!" I bet that would have gotten a laugh.
I'm being silly, of course. I just wish President Bush would have been silly, because he was way too serious, and way too fawning in commending a guy who has said horrible things about him. That's politics, of course. This president had better realize it, because his dad never did. His dad stuck with people who torpedoed his administration, and the son's picking up where he left off.
There's such a thing as being too gracious. And I fear the Bush family is discovering - again - the all-too-real results.
Neil Cavuto is the author of "More Than Money" (Regan Books, June 2004) and managing editor of Business News at FOX News Channel. He is also the host of "Your World with Neil Cavuto" and "Cavuto on Business."
COPYRIGHT 2004 NEIL CAVUTO
No. There was a great article on here months ago about how good a poker player George was in school. He sets you up, then he buries your a**. It's starting to happen this very day with Putin's words starting to spread "mysteriously"! He's an a** kicker.
Does anyone remember that article written last fall about G.W.'s poker days back at Business School. He was known as a deadly poker player. He's been playing it for years now. He stilll has the cards and he knows how to hold them!
How about today.
#43 took on the NY Times directly by reading their own headlines from 1946 about how the entire effort in Germany had failed.
It was a great moment, I wanted to stand up and cheer.
"He sets you up, then he buries your a**. It's starting to happen this very day with Putin's words starting to spread "mysteriously"! He's an a** kicker."
He sure is. I'll bet the list of mysterious scenarios and comments from people "in the know", will be long and deadly to sKerry and many Dems to follow for years ahead. I have nothing to base this on except after having watched ole Mr Bush closely, while watching many, many stories build with no response (yet) from the Whitehouse. You got to know when to hold em...
Yep. Watching the Dems. over the next months will be like watching ice cream melt in a hot Arizona summer wind!
Well he (Bush) sure has me fooled. If it wasn't for Rush and Hannity I would probably believe the media. He's got the bully pulpit, USE IT!
Just like his father was in '92, right.
Please
The Bush rope-a-dope works well for him on many issues. However, when I look at the Iraq campaign, I'm not so sure. I'm remembering how the Democrats insisted he get a vote from Congress - rope-a-dope he did. Then the Democrats raised the bar: OK we better nation-build, not just carpet bomb their infrastructure and by the way get UN approval - rope-a-dope and he did. Then Democrats raised the bar again. OK put the inspectors back in - rope-a-dope and he did. Then the Democrats raised the bar again: OK get UN approval again - and he tried and he didn't. Then we got there to find the WMD got away. The Democrats smacked Bush with that bar: Ah ha - see you lied and by the way this nation building is all screwed up. I do think Bush is too nice - especially to Democrats who hate him. But then, perhaps there's some strength there. I'll hold my breath for the next rope-a-dope.
GWB should move Bill's picture into the Intern's dressing room and move Hillary's picture into the recylcing room of the White House.
GW might have been playing poker with his money earlier but today it is MY money that he using & giving Srs prescription drugs, Teddy 11 EXTRA billion for his pet project, etc seems that his opponents have won the poker games.
G.W. Bush was known as "The Inforcer" during his father's Presidency.
All Real Americans are praying that this is the case. Even the terrible scene in the White House praising the Arkie trailer trash former occupant may turn out to have been an exquisite head fake of some kind, but it sure is hard to be patient. Other bone crushers for those of us who want the war to succeed, as it must, include; [a] the decision not to fumigate Fallujah; [b] the fact that Mucktar Ali Ba Ba Sadr hasn't been taken out and [c] the initial selection, much less the continued presence of L. Paul Bremer [a Foggy Bottom factotum, not a warrior] at the top of the occupation food chain in Iraq. These decisions were taken by someone, but only the President bears responsibility for them. And finally, if the President does not take strong corrective action against the Saudis on oil prices and on their continued support for islamofascism, his passivity will hinder the war on terror and his own re-election. It is time for the President to put Karl Rove on sabbatical until after the election.
Yes, he is. And his "presentation" vis a vis the Clinton certainly signaled to me that the arse-whupping has just begun.
That really was an astonishing speech he gave in celebration of the Clintoons the other day. The Bushes are suckers in many ways really. I really would like to know if Bush really believes that cr** he was saying in praise of them the other day. They'll continue to preach hatred against him and 'expose' him for what a dirty administration they supposedly have and how he knew about 9/11, and every other rotten thing that bad people do.
Ya gotta believe the dictionary of American slang will forever have a new definition for a clymer. LOL.
I guess some will do anything to try to get Katie Couric et al to say something nice about them.
The job requires extreme graciousness if he is a quality President at times like the picture unveiling of Clinton.
But, on making the case for the war and straightening up the fraud the press has put forward, I would think he could use the power of his office to go to the people way more than he has.
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