Posted on 02/22/2005 7:33:39 AM PST by Flightdeck
"It's over!" Or: "Worlds are colliding! Unfastened is Pandora's box, and it heralds apocalyptic days of doom - the end of the Republican reign." Or even: "Hell hath no fury like Bush's unbridled tongue: Tapes of President Bush speaking unedited, uncoached and unchecked are loosed to do their bidding!"
This is what one would expect to hear from mortified Bush supporters after just such a bombshell announcement - the release of private presidential tapes.
From a president who has coined (and I use this word as disdainfully as possible) words such as "misunderestimate," "Hispanically," and "the Internets" in rehearsed stump speeches and - Heaven help us! - an actual presidential debate, news that The New York Times has heard nine hours of unabridged and unaided Bushspeak is surely a conservative dystopia.
Doug Wead, an author and former aide to George H.W. Bush, provided the Times this series of a dozen tapes which captured Bush's thoughts, ideas and candor on every issue from his faith and quasi-blemished past to Cabinet appointees and gay marriage.
The disaster that conservatives crossed fingers in hopes of avoiding never came, much to the chagrin of the circle-and-slash W. crowd. One relieved Free Republic blogger put it best: "Thank God... [Bush] is what he is, has been and will always be: himself."
This guy got it exactly right: Bush is always Bush. Just imagine the incrimination that would come from nine hours of off-the-cuff, "private" recordings between Clinton and a trusted friend. Remember the 18-minute mystery gap that "happened" into Nixon's secretly taped conversation with his chief of staff? Or what about Lyndon Johnson's confidential tape stash? For a president, secret tapes are about as damning as it gets. But, these tapes don't incriminate or condemn: Bush in private is Bush in public. He is himself.
I admit it: Having never met the president, I find it difficult at times to defend him or his thoughts (or lack thereof). And I can't trust the explications he or his press secretary or Cabinet members put forward to the public as guiltless, spin-free and veritable. Now, enter secret tapes.
No preparation, no politicking, no putting the best foot forward; if you want real, this is it. The tapes are full of Bush genuineness like misused words, a Texan patois and that occasionally braggart swagger. It's a complete package; Bush is always Bush, and that's inclusive of those idiosyncrasies that make him the object of vituperative, filthy mudslinging.
Here's a sampling of W., unplugged:
Speaking about prominent evangelical minister James Robison, Bush told Wead, "I think he wants me to attack homosexuals. [I told him], 'Look, James ... I'm not going to kick gays, because I'm a sinner. How can I differentiate sin?'" But he added, "Gay marriage, I am against that. Special rights, I am against that." Hardly anti-gay, yet consistent with his religious roots. (A bit of clarification on the motives behind a constitutional amendment.)
Though he's made mistakes, Bush is keenly aware that one of his duties is national role model: Bush told Wead about his past, "I wouldn't answer the marijuana questions. You know why? Because I don't want some little kid doing what I tried." In Bush's words, "Baby boomers have got to grow up and say, 'yeah, I may have done drugs,' but instead of admitting it, say to kids, 'don't do them.'" I doubt any ambitious politician's desire to conceal a past (shameful or not) is entirely altruistic; however, when the unguarded stance to which he defaults in private is setting a meritorious example, that's certainly a start. Let's assume Clinton and Gore initially denied marijuana use for the same reasons.
His faith brings balance and pushes him to be a better man: He lists five life-defining moments: "Accepting Christ. Marrying my wife. Having children. Running for governor. And listening to my mother." He said of his experiences as a Christian, "I've sinned, and I've learned." And, "I read the Bible daily. The Bible is pretty good about keeping your ego in check."
Many in conservative circles are harboring enough ire at Wead to sink an anchored ferry, insisting he released these tapes to get publicity. In his defense, Wead says he withheld the juiciest and most intimate bits of tape. (He incidentally has a new book, "The Raising of a President," available.)
These tapes do Bush more justice than a passel of fawning NewsMax stories. They are uncensored and true. They define the president's uncontrived, unpretentious staidness more than any biography ever will. Never have secret recordings of a president done anything but bring dishonorable ignominy and reprehension to the highest elected office. In these tapes, Bush is his himself when he didn't have to be.
But what did I expect? After all, Bush is Bush.
Rainey is a journalism junior
I think when all is said and done, history will look
back on Bush as one of the finest Presidents ever.
Your two comments below, sum up the NY Slimes as it flounders around:
"The fact that the NYTimes had to pose the question is the best proof that there is nothing they could use to hurt Bush in any of the tapes."
"I guess it it time to back to the TANG issue!! LOL!!"
Or maybe trot out the old yellowcake, Plame/Wilson blame game.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1348716/posts?page=1#1
EX=PROSECUTOR: PLAME LEAK NOT ILLEGAL
NEWSMAX ^ | 2/22/05
Posted on 02/22/2005 10:14:45 AM PST by areafiftyone
The former prosecutor who helped draft the law that Democrats say was violated when someone in the Bush administration leaked a CIA worker's name to columnist Robert Novak now says that no laws were broken in the case.
Writing with First Amendment lawyer Bruce Sanford in the Washington Post recently, former Assistant Deputy Attorney General Victoria Toensing explained that she helped draft the law in question, the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act.
Says Toensing, "The Novak column and the surrounding facts do not support evidence of criminal conduct."
So why – with a special prosecutor now threatening to toss Time magazine's Matthew Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller in jail if they don't give up their sources in the Plame case – aren't their lawyers invoking the "no laws were broken" defense?
Explains the National Review's Rich Lowry: The Miller-Cooper defense hasn't made this argument because it would be too embarrassing to admit that the Bush administration's "crime of the century" wasn't really a crime at all, especially after a year and a half of media chest-beating to the contrary.
"It was just a Washington flap played for all it was worth by the same news organizations now about to watch their employees go to prison over it," says Lowry.
"That's the truth that the media will go to any length to avoid."
Possibly a liberal, rather than a leftist - meaning there's hope for him. I thought the piece was fairly well written and extremely positive, albeit the truth is couched in leftyspekk so the target audience will understand his points.
Of course there couldn't be the teeniest, tiniest possibility that the Private Mr Bush is remarkably like the public governor Bush and later President Bush because they ARE exactly the same person?
I'd say what you see is what you get, but the left collective doesn't SEE him, usually to their serious embarrassment.
ta for ping.
from the same author, Doug Wead
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/choice2000/bush/wead.html
"Is there any story you can tell us that helps define another aspect of him that you think is important?
Yeah, one thing I haven't seen covered in the press a lot is his almost anal sense of integrity; anything fishy, anything grey. When he was running his dad's campaign, there were girls who would have loved to have slept with the vice-president's son, the future president of the United States, and they'd send signals out and he'd send signals back saying, "Not interested."
There was even one that was kind of pushed. I remember sitting in his office when a very prominent public figure walked in and said, "G.W., you really made her feel bad, you really hurt her." G.W. said, "Good. I'm married. Not interested. Case closed. Good, I hope she feels bad, good. Glad she got the message." And in his business life I saw that. "
another story:
"There was a congressman, former congressman, who came to me with a wonderful business deal that would be good for the cause, it involved a media purchase, it was a good deal. They had one little piece of the puzzle missing and G.W. had the contact and could make the phone call to make this work, to add, to make this work. So this congressman, I said, "Ok, I'll get you in to see G.W."
And we were rehearsing in his hotel room before the meeting, and he gets to a part where he's going to say to G.W., "And there's something in this for you, if you can be helpful to us, da da da da da." ...So I plead with the congressman "Don't do this, don't say this to G.W., he'll spot it" and, he says, "That's not the way Washington works, this is what we do here, it's quid pro quo, this is long before Washington, this is the essence of people, of politics and business and there's nothing illegal about this." I said, "You understand Washington, I understand G.W. Bush. Please don't do that, you're going to embarrass me and it will backfire." He says, "Alright," I say, "Promise me," he says, "Ok, I promise." So I took him in there, and sure enough, we get in the middle of this thing, G.W.'s listening to it, sounds good, and then this congressman says, "And we're not going to take advantage of you, and if you can help us and da da da da da" and G.W. jumped out of his chair so fast and lifted the congressman up-- former congressman-- and said, "Well, this was great, thanks, buddy, thanks," and basically threw him out of his office... "
Of course there couldn't be the teeniest, tiniest possibility that the Private Mr Bush is remarkably like the public governor Bush and later President Bush because they ARE exactly the same person?
I'd say what you see is what you get, but the left collective doesn't SEE him, usually to their serious embarrassment.
As do I. Had a feeling about him from the beginning. Still do.
Thanks for that info/post. Very good.
My first experience with Dubya goes back to the days when he was managing partner of the Texas Rangers.I remember when I'd go to the games I'd take my binoculars cuz it was fun to watch the players and fans, etc. I remember checking each game to see if Dubya was there. He'd always sit behind the home team dugout on the first base side.
Amazingly, Bush is always accused of being the mastermind first, but since being a mastermind doesn't jibe with being a bumbling fool, Rove becomes the default Evil Villian. None of which ever makes sense to any thinking individual.
Most leftists don't think, but allow others to do it for them. Their brain cells have completely atropheid and are therefore non-functional.
The "others" who do the thinking are only nominally able to think, having been "taught" to think in indoctrination centers, and therefore just experiencing a preprogrammed response to any set of similar circumstances. Their brain cells are partly to mostly atrophied, depending on what their base intelligence was to start with, and therefore partly to mostly functional at best.
They're all voluntarily brain damaged.
Oh wow, now THAT is a cool story!
Me, too. I liked him from the first time I heard that he was running for the nomination. Interestingly, that was an article about him in the Wash. comPost.
I am so happy he is our President.
Great story, thanks! Must have been interesting following his career from such an early point on...
First time I saw Bush in person was at a rally last year in a baseball stadium. He was coming out of the dugout with Laura... yep, on the first base side :-)
When I meet people who, out of sincere conviction (usually religious) believe homosexuality is sinful and that public policy ought to be deployed to prevent this sinful behavior, I disagree with them, but understand that this sort of deep moral disagreement rooted in faith is a part of life.
When you see someone who knows perfectly well that the view he's adopted for political purposes is wrong, but who adopts it anyway out of cyncial thirst for power, well, then, that's just totally disgusting.
Spam!
You have quotes I assume?
I don't think you have your facts straight.
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