Posted on 01/16/2009 2:57:11 AM PST by JohnHuang2
WASHINGTON — President Bush said goodbye to the American people on Thursday night, declaring in his final address to the nation that while he had had some setbacks during his turbulent eight years in office, “I have followed my conscience and done what I thought was right.”
The 13-minute address, delivered from the East Room of the White House before an audience of 200, including 50 invited guests and members of Mr. Bush’s cabinet, was a somber end to an administration that, by Mr. Bush’s own account, did not always go according to plan.
“Like all who have held this office before me, I have experienced setbacks,” Mr. Bush said, in a steady, even cadence. “There are things I would do differently if given the chance. Yet I have always acted with the best interests of our country in mind.”
The speech will be Mr. Bush’s last appearance in public until Tuesday, when he turns the Oval Office over to his successor, Barack Obama. Mr. Obama may not have seen it; at precisely 8 p.m., when Mr. Bush began speaking, he departed Blair House, the presidential guest house opposite the White House where he and his family are staying, for a restaurant a few blocks away.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Mr. Misunderestimated won't be misunderestimated much longer
Bush's address tonight beamed with all that became his trademark qualities and attributes: Magnanimity, pure class, relentless charm, dazzling wit, unyielding resolve, simple grace, easy elegance and quiet dignity seasoned with thoughtfulness, firmness of purpose and a hang-tough adherence to moral principles and conviction -- the very things that for eight years drove liberals to embrace madness.
The speech was marked by Bush's relentless optimism and his indisputable sense of confidence, epitomizing why the man connected with voters so well as to win two terms. Yet, if any reminder was needed that George W. Bush was that rare politician who didn't give a lick about polls nor image-making nor how he should package himself, whose appeal to people was rooted in action and his principled stand on issues, this speech -- a no-apologies tour de force of the Bush record -- was it. You may not always agree with him but he always says what he means and you're never in doubt as to where the chap stands.
Bush is at once a powerful leader and a humble man, a take-charge president imbued with a warm, gentle decency and quiet politeness and decorum unheard of in politics, yet a man who wasn't just marking time but instead leaving a permanent imprint in the sands of history.
Even against the sustained heavy artillery barrage of personal attacks these past eight years, Bush remained an undaunted living profile in dignity and poise, ungrudgingly carrying out the most difficult task in the most stressful job in the world -- leading America in wartime with liberal ninnies nagging every step of the way. For eight years, libbies have hysterically attacked Bush as a war criminal, war deserter, warmonger, moron, 9/11 mastermind, idiot, liar, Nazi, evil Zionist, Texas theocrat, murderer -- all the while prodigiously cranking out books and movies dreaming of the day when Bush gets knocked off. For liberals, it was a profound disappointment that a live grenade that landed near Bush in Tbilisi's Freedom's Square didn't go off.
Bush, never whining nor stooping to the level of his insane critics, is a man truly more than worthy of the office -- unlike that empty suit what's-his-face who'll enter it in four days.
Other than liberating 60 million people in Iraq and Afghanistan and creaming al-Qaeda on its home court and forcing Libya to cry uncle and busting up the A.Q. Khan network (just in time to bring Laura her coffee on a tray in the morning!), perhaps no aspect of Bush's foreign policy has infuriated liberals more than Bush's unflinching and courageous support of Israel. Liberals opposed toppling Saddam Hussein because it would help Israel. Liberals oppose bombing Iran because it would help Israel. Before getting toppled from his golden toilet seat in Bush's "failed" war, Saddam was busily showering money on murderers of Jews in Israel. Upping the ante, Iran's nuclear mullahs want to nuke Israel off the map. So nothing enrages liberals more than Bush's support of Jews in their right to defend themselves. Bush would be hailed as a hero if only he would let Muslims finish the job Hitler started.
To be sure, Bush made his share of mistakes, don't we all? And you can quibble over this or that nettlesome single issue or pet peeve, but the upshot of Bush's tenure isn't the Dow Jones or Bush's poll position in France, but rather his performance on what came to be the core issue of his presidency, emblemized in the clarion call blaring defiantly from his bullhorn amid the ruins of Manhattan in 9/11's wake. From atop a charred firetruck, surrounded by crowds of cheering firefighters and rescue workers in hardhats, Bush famously declared the days of fraidy-cat, wimpy kid-glove treatment for homicidal Islamic maniacs are over. The Taliban soon got a taste of what he meant. What would Obama have done? "Well, the first thing we'd have to do is make sure we've got an effective emergency response . . . [then] find out do we have any intelligence on who might have carried it out . . ." Hmmm, planes flown into skyscrapers . . . whodunnit? Any ideas??? The Jesuits? The Amish?
Whereas Zero's first act after a ghastly 9/11-style attack is to check with FEMA, Bush more than rose to the occasion, laying out the blueprint to fix the problem and win the war, regularly delivering laser-guided messages to al-Qaeda that the Ol' Great Satan is in it for the long haul. The old paradigm was 'reactive', the new paradigm was pro-active. Liberals responded by poring over Bush's every move to find mistakes, then running to MSNBC to pout on TV.
In fact, the Big Lie is the Lie that Democrats fully supported the war against Muslim fanatics after 9/11. Two weeks after the U.S. air campaign in Afghanistan was launched, Joe Biden started whining that the war was dragging on too long for him. "How much longer does the bombing continue?" the little Treasoncrat wanted to know. "Because we're going to pay every single hour, every single day it continues, we're going to pay an escalating price in the Muslim world." Biden complained hysterically that "bombing" terrorists from the air "plays into every stereotypical criticism of us" as "this high-tech bully." We should sit down and talk to the Taliban, play nice and all will be well. This little twerp is America's next vice president. Not to worry, his boss is President-elect Nobody.
The general consensus among the media class is that history will be kinder to Bush than they were, an implicit admission that they were lying about him all along, or presenting only a little slice of the picture. But you don't need to wait years for things to play out when six months (or less) will do. Already, Obama is moving rapidly to build the most inept and corrupt administration since the last Democrat administration, whether it's appointing a tax cheat to head the Treasury, a bribe-by to head Commerce (since withdrawn), a scandal factory punkster for chief of staff, a mental case for Climate Commissar, or Eric Holder to "rigorously and impartially" break the law at DOJ. But, hold on. In the Blaggy affair, you've got Rahm, Axelrod and Obama. In short, this could go as high as the top three stooges.
The whiners will whine on about Katrina and Abu Ghraib, but if the "Palestinians" haven't danced in the streets in seven years, you've got Bushitler's war to blame for that. Not so much as an itty-bitty, itsy-bitsy, teensy-weensy al-Qaeda firecracker has gone off on U.S. soil since 9/11, and the best the Jihadi lads can muster these days is binny's sickly voice on cheap audiotape. But all this is more than just how many "warrantless" wiretap bills or Patriot Acts got passed or the number of fierce bureaucrats filling positions at Homeland Security. Fat lotta good it does to have these tools if the chap at the top doesn't have the crazies convinced that he's crazier than they are. At Jihad Central, I doubt the admonition is, 'We have nothing to fear but the Patriot Act itself!'
One 9/11 hit cost binny and the boys two terrorist sanctuaries -- Afghanistan and Iraq. Not to slough off wiretaps and the Patriot Act, but a big deterrent factor has been Bush himself. Thoughts of Bush aren't where jihadists go to get warm and fuzzy feelings.
Mr. President, thank you for your unwavering leadership, for your steadfast resolve, for your unyielding determination to keep us safe, for giving of yourself in the most thankless job imaginable. May God bless you and Laura with lots of health and happiness in the years ahead. We miss you already.
Anyway, that's...
My Two Cents...
"JohnHuang2"
class act
This is my recollection too. They like to say now that they were all for Afghanistan, but I remember them really talking up the Afghan fighters and how the Afghan people had never been defeated, blah, blah, blah. They were against the U.S. going after the Taliban, but now have rewritten it that Afghanistan was okay by them, but Iraq was just going too far.
Yes, just as they were all anti-Soviets too back in the day.
thread bump;
I saw George Bush sitting on that little school room chair on 9/11 - I was watching television with my husband both of us speechless at the sights being unveiled for the American people. My husband who had never urged me to become a citizen now looked at me as if to say: You can’t continue without committing yourself to the days ahead.
I knew then at that moment how I felt the blow to the nation and promised myself to the nation as a citizen, and to the President who would have to live through those terrible days and the monstrous accusations which followed his during his tenure in office.
He is still my President and will continue to be through the next four or eight years.
I do not give my heart and honor or my vote to pretenders.
“...and a hang-tough adherence to moral principles and conviction — “
That’s it in a nutshell! And it’s something we won’t be seeing for quite some time.
Thank you for the BEST post I have read in weeks. Your posts are one of the main reasons that I joined FR. ;-)
Thanks JH2! bttt
We will miss this good and noble man.
President George W. Bush may not have been perfect and I did not always agree with him, but I truly will miss this great man. What on earth will the press do now that they won’t have President George W. Bush to kick around anymore?
...Bravo, John. Bravo, GWB...
” Bush more than rose to the occasion,”
He always did.
He’s the last man to truly be elected not by the press, but by the people.
“He’s the last man to truly be elected not by the press, but by the people.”
Amen to that.
Goodbye Mr. Bush and may me or my descendants never see another Bush in the White House.
Unlike a lot of other people, I’m judging Bush by what he did do, not by what he didn’t do or what I think he should have done.
And going by that, he has had a few pitfalls, but ultimately, I think he’s done a lot more good than harm; if we all recall correctly, the harm started coming after the RATs took Congress. When he was first elected, he was a man who did what he thought was right and didn’t care about what people said about him, and that was why I had such respect for him. Granted, he did switch over from that somewhat in his later years, but when you’re responsible for an entire nation for a few years, who among us wouldn’t be even the least bit concerned for what people thought of us.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but if I were to ever meet Bush on the street, I would not hesistate to shake his hand and say “Not bad, Mr. President, not bad.” He wasn’t the best (Ronald Reagan has that title), but he most certainly wasn’t the worst. And I’m willing to bet you that in a few years, there’s going to be a new bumper sticker out there that reads “I miss George.”
I commend you. Some people saw it back then and switched over. Others refused to see it. At times it perplexes me. The evidence is out there. It’s staring us right in the face. It’s screaming at us that it wants us dead. What will it take to convince these people who did not see what 9/11 meant?
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