The Escalating War Between Obama and Bush

Former White House adviser Karl Rove's bare-knuckled response to recent statements by Vice President Joe Biden has brought into public view a growing resentment on the part of Bush administration veterans over what they regard as repeated and unwarranted slams from the Obama White House. The current president and his team are being "gratuitous, slightly petty, and slightly obsessive in blaming Bush for things," one former White House adviser told me.

The hard feelings surfaced after an April 7 interview on CNN in which Biden recounted a visit with George W. Bush. "I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office…he said, 'Well, Joe, I'm a leader.'" Biden recalled. "And I said, 'Mr. President, turn around and look behind you. No one's following.'"

A few days later, Rove accused Biden of lying. "It didn't happen," Rove said on Fox News. "He's making these things up out of whole cloth…It is a habit he ought to drop….You should not exaggerate and lie like this when you are the vice president of the United States."

Rove said he had checked with fellow Bushies like former chief of staff Andrew Card and former congressional liaison Candida Wolff, who did not remember anything like Biden's story. What was left unsaid was that while former top White House officials denied it, there was little doubt that the former top White House official, George W. Bush, denied it, too. Rove and the former president stay in touch; it would be very, very surprising for Rove to say something so definitive about Biden without checking with the best possible source for the story, Bush himself.

I'm back to apologize.

I apologize for letting you get me mad (and bring back to my mind such ugly days here), and for saying things I should never have said to you.

I apologize for taking up other people's time to carry on this dopey fight (my side has been dopey too). I also apologize for hurtful and nasty things that I have said in retaliation for your insults (even if they were lies-which they were). I should have behaved like an adult, and I didn't. I should have ignored your initial comment about President Bush, which I didn't. None of this was worth anything in the scheme of things.

I don't spend very much time here (far better things to do in my life), and I have no intention of spending much time here in the future, so wasting it like this in a spitting contest with someone who doesn't know a thing about me, nor who I am (and vice versa), has really left a bad taste in my mouth.

For my part, this has ended. No more wasted time. No more insults. No more defense against someone whose only goal was to ridicule.

Life is too good and time too precious to waste. We need to fight this vile, lying, socialist in the White House, and we need to fight hard. If we fight each other, (even based on imaginary flaws, Pelham), then we diminish the cause of conservatism.

It is not my intent to do that, even if it means staying away.

Every school kid I know recognizes ‘dumb as a box of rocks’, ‘covens and broomsticks’, ‘how bright could he be?’ and other such insults and knows they are... insults. Sometimes there’s a snotty little brat, usually a girl, who tries to claim that “no, those aren’t insults, those are LIES!”. That kid is the one who ends up being all alone on the playground.

The truth is that you have an undisciplined temper and when you get angry you think calling someone a liar is a useful tool. Which it is, as long as you think lying is okay, as a tactic anyway. Now I don’t have a problem with you doing that, so I haven’t been whining about it. I just figure it’s part of your character, just as valid as the piety act. Maybe more so.

So, while you offer a sort-of apology in one of your posts, it’s not exactly a real apology because it repeats the accusation that I’ve been posting lies about you. Now that’s not nice, not if you can’t actually point to a lie. So, out of consideration for your spiritual health I think it’s incumbent to wait for you to produce an actual example of a lie, rather than a list of the insults I employed. Although I did enjoy the list, as I got to chuckle once again at my creative use of insults. They were pretty funny. Well, I suppose you don’t find them funny, but I’ll bet someone else would. Okay, so now it’s your turn to call me a ‘metrosexual’ and a ‘Bush-hater’ and stuff. Oh yeah, and don’t forget ‘liar’.

Pelham. The things you said were not just insults. They were lies. And reading them on a public forum hurts - even if all you think of me is that I am a bratty little girl.

I am apologizing to you, and it is genuine, for the nasty things I said to you. It's real. I'm sorry.

But please don't repeat lies like you have done here - that I worship President Bush - he is my brother in Christ. That I moved in some sort of group with Howlin, or that I left here because of her (absolutely, factually untrue). That I am stupid. Whatever else.

I understand that because you think I'm dumb, you think you can say whatever you like and not take responsibility for it, but I can't do that with you. I don't believe in situation ethics that excuse my bad behavior by blaming it on you. I'm taking full responsibility for my fault in this dopey exchange between us.

I know for a fact that you stated deliberately false information here about me, and you admitted to doing it for fun. You may say that I'm whining (that's the standard deflection of your culpability, isn't it?)- and perhaps I am, but I don't like being lied about, and it hasn't happened since I left here two years ago.

Now if we could start over, I would like to see if you are capable of a civil discussion with someone like me, who respects the integrity, courage, and character of George W. Bush. If we could go back and I would re-word my initial response to your undocumented insult of President Bush and we could discuss the issue and avoid the personal attacks, would you do it?

Are you willing to have an adult discussion with me? I am with you.

Here we go - Pelham said....

But Bush and Obama will kiss and makeup when it comes time for forcing amnesty on an unwilling and angry American public.

This comment is irrelevant to the article above, Pelham, but how do you back this up with anything other than your opinion and disrespect for President Bush?

The problem stated by Rove in the article is that Biden was lying about his meetings with President Bush. We know that Biden is a liar, and we know that Rove, Card, etc. are not. Therefore the logical conclusion for a conservative is that Rove is right, and to support his side of the controversy - no more, no less.

So what, from this article, leads you to believe that Bush and Obama "will kiss and make up" (since the article is about Rove), or that Bush in any way now has either the political power or any association with the Marxist in the White House so that they will together "force amnesty" on the American public?

What facts do you have to support this accusation of President Bush?

“Pelham. The things you said were not just insults. They were lies.”

Name one.

“But please don’t repeat lies like you have done here - that I worship President Bush - he is my brother in Christ.”

That’s priceless. You, who base your screen name on Dubya, pretending that you don’t hero worship Bush. You just get better with every post.

“That I moved in some sort of group with Howlin, or that I left here because of her (absolutely, factually untrue)”

Right. You didn’t leave FR for WideAwakes. It is someone else who uses your name over there. Same for Howlin and the rest of the mob with their old FR handles.

“That I am stupid. Whatever else.”

Quod erat demonstrandum.

“I know for a fact that you stated deliberately false information here about me, and you admitted to doing it for fun.”

There were no falsehoods, and you’re not that much fun. Maybe equal to a game of whack-a-mole, but that’s about it. You have a fixation on yourself that is a bit tiresome. You popped out of the woodwork when I posted that far from being at war, Bush and Obama share one great love, and that’s amnesty for illegal aliens. Obama can’t get to the left of Bush on that one because there is no room to Bush’s left. I doubt that La Raza or MALDEF or the Aztlan thugs are to Bush’s left. Let’s see you defend Bush’s border treachery if you can put off thinking about yourself for ten seconds.

I simply remembered you being part of Howlin’s coven of nutcases before you all hopped on your brooms and flew over to WideAwakes in a huff.

This is a lie. It is a mistatement of facts based on your own perception and not on reality. You obviously believe that whatever you feel is truth, but when you state these feelings and perceptions in public as facts, as you did here, it is deliberate dishonesty. I'm not even sure that I knew Howlin was at WA until after I joined, but she had nothing to do with my leaving. It was another freeper who invited me there. In addition, there was absolutely no correlation between where I posted here on FR and where Howlin posted. We were sometimes on the same threads because of similar interests, but to state as fact that I was part of a "coven" is absolutely false. You can keep saying it over and over because it's the way you feel, but it is still false.

I have no problem admitting that I love George W. Bush. I admire his honor, integrity, love for his wife, love of country, courage, strong faith and fundamental decency. I have never agreed with his every policy (including immigration), and have always been far more conservative than he.

But, most people do understand that there is a giant chasm between admiration and idolatry - which is a grave sin. You might accurately state that you think I'm an idiot for admiring President Bush, but you cross an ethical line when you accuse me of worshipping him, with no disclaimer that it is based merely on your perception (i.e. feelings).

You have drawn conclusions that are inaccurate, and have stated them as fact - and that is dishonest. Most decent people, when they are made aware that their feelings are not backed up by reality, admit their error. Obviously you are dug in, and don't care about what is right and what is wrong.

Another question - did you mean it when you said that my being at the Tea Party was "playing?" And when you made that accusation that you were doing something constructive by being at work, and I was wasting time by being at a Tea Party, did you mean to also accuse the hundreds of thousands of other Americans, including thousands of freepers who were doing the same thing? Or was that part of your self-admitted "trap?" If you didn't really think that freepers who were at Tea Parties were "playing" then your accusation of me for doing it was also dishonest. If you really do think that the Tea Parties are a waste of time, then you are accusing an awful lot of patriots on this forum.

But perhaps you believe that other freepers are not patriots, as you believe I am not a patriot. I'm not sure where your game ends and your honesty begins.

So I wonder where you draw the line between being honest and lying. Since your definition of lying doesn't include making statements that are completely untrue, it's difficult to tell how you define the term.

Talk about over rating your own significance, Pelham. I started posting here again weeks ago, and was here on this thread reading about Karl Rove and Joe Biden, and read your off-subject comment and replied. The idea that I "popped out of the woodwork" because of you is just silly - or egotistical?.

President Bush was trying to get a grip on the illegal issue by doing what he thought was best, as had President Reagan before him. I don't agree with what either of them did. I don't even know what Obama's position is because I am so concerned that he is shredding the Constitution and turning this great nation into a socialist third world country, and is working as hard as he can to kill as many babies as he can, that my focus has been there. He is a threat to the very fabric of this country.

I have long supported a stronger stance against illegal immigration than the Bush administration held (or any before him). But there is such a fundamental difference between the character of President Bush, and the complete lack of character of Obama, that imagining that they would somehow plot together in a pro-amnesty policy and that Bush is left of la Raza do not seem to me to be rational thoughts.

But since this is NOT a thread on immigration, your comments were decidedly off topic. Two years ago there would have been dozens of angry, foul-mouthed, name-calling, Bush-hating trolls here with you. I'm glad you stood alone trolling this thread. It's big progress for this forum, IMO.

Now, as I have said before - debate my words, debate my ideas, but leave out the lies.

Oh.....and YOU were the one who made the thread about me - I just erred in defending myself and joining you in the mud. I have apologized for that and have stopped the personal attacks. You have done neither.

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