Posted on 11/10/2010 10:40:07 AM PST by Chi-townChief
Said Kanye’s ludicrous remark was a low point of his presidency
Raise your hand if you thought George W. Bush’s memoir would include revelations that Kanye West hurt his feelings and his mother showed him a fetus in a jar when he was a teenager.
That’s one sensitive president, and one bizarre move by mom.
Making the rounds to promote his book, Decision Points, Bush told Matt Lauer that after his mother, Barbara, had a miscarriage, she showed George the fetus in a jar.
“She says to her teenage kid, ‘Here’s a fetus,’” said Bush. “There’s no question that it affected me.”
Ya think? My personal reaction would have been: Mom needs help.
After the miscarriage, Mrs. Bush had put the fetus in a jar to take to the hospital. For reasons unexplained by George W., she showed him the fetus. Bush says he included the episode in the book not to illustrate “the evolution of a pro-life point of view,” but “to show how my mom and I developed a relationship.”
Via a fetus in a jar?
Imagine what the critics of, say, Bill Clinton would say if Clinton recounted such an episode. There’s just no way to categorize such an episode as anything but strange.
Remember, too, that Barbara Bush is pro-choice. Maybe she wasn’t at the time, but regardless of her viewpoint on a woman’s right to choose, what would be the point in showing your teenage son a fetus in a jar?
Kanye take that back please? I don’t know why Bush even bothered to address Kanye West’s ignorant claim during the Hurricane Katrina telethon that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” While undeniably talented and influential as a musical force, West has established himself as one of the leading blithering nincompoops of his generation, whether he’s wrestling a microphone from Taylor Swift, replacing his lower teeth with diamonds or comparing himself to Jesus. He’s a clown.
Yet Bush says West’s diss represented an “all-time low” for his presidency. In the book, Bush recalls telling his wife, Laura, that West’s remarks were “the worst moment” of his time in office.
“He called me a racist,” Bush told Lauer. “I resent it, it’s not true, and it’s one of the most disgusting moments of my presidency.”
How about the suffering endured by the victims of Katrina? How about the WMD debacle? What about the morning of 9/11?
Surely Bush doesn’t truly believe that hearing some blowhard rapper say he doesn’t care about black people was the all-time low moment of his presidency. That would be as absurd as Barack Obama saying Glenn Beck’s assertion that Obama has a “deep-seated hatred for white people” was the all-time low of HIS presidency.
This is not to minimize the ugliness of West’s comments or the fact that West spewed that ugly bile on a night when the goal was to raise funds for Katrina aid. Say what you will about George Bush, there’s nothing in his life that indicates anything approaching racism, and to have one of the most powerful figures in entertainment say that about you has to be personally hurtful. That’s understood.
(Yes, West has apologized to Swift, privately and in song, and he has expressed regrets about his comments about Bush as well. I don’t think Kanye is evil. He just spouts without thinking. Again and again.)
But when it comes to presidential reactions to West, Obama got it right. Asked about Kanye and Taylor Swift, Obama (thinking he was off the record) called West a “jackass” and left it at that.
That’s about as much of a presidential reaction as Kanye West should ever get.
A presidential ex-president Give Bush credit for steadfastly refusing to criticize Obama.
“I don’t think it’s good for the country to have a former president criticize his successor,” Dubya said last month.
Now that he’s out promoting the book, Bush is holding to that belief. Nor will he comment on Sarah Palin and the 2012 race, even when Oprah pressed him about it on Tuesday.
“I’m not a political pundit, I’m really not,” Bush told Oprah. “And secondly, a lot is going to happen between now and the nominating process. . . . You’re asking me to wade back into the swamp.”
The Dubya we’ve seen the last few days seems relaxed, satisfied, confident.
You get the feeling he thinks the only thing better than being president is being an ex-president.
I tried to read the article, but it appears I don’t have good enough drugs to permit me to finish reading it.
Maybe Dopey Roeper and Bill Maher could team up for a comedy tour. Their style seems similar.
Leftists are so predictable. The attacks begin, right on cue.
Richard Roeper? Isn’t he a movie critic? Bush took his criticisms like a man and never complained about it. That he points out one instance that stung makes him human, not thin-skinned, certainly not like Obama who goes on the attack at any hint of criticism or dissent and never stops whining about those who disagree with them, telling them to “not do a lot of talking” or to “sit in the back.” Obama is so incapable of accepting that he’s not universally adored that he even engages hecklers. But you won’t hear DICK Roeper commenting on Obama’s tissue-thick skin.
Not reading any article that says Kanye is talented.
But no other president has ever had to take the hatred bush had to. Thin skinned? No way.
Thin skinned? I’d like to know how this moron would feel were he accused of being a racist and intentionally allowing a large number of people die just because of the color of their skin. What an @ssclown this idiot is.
When GW said that he was hurt by Kanye West’s comment - what he was really saying is: “I am aware of the constant vitriol spewed by paid professional pundits, NYT, WaPO, ABC,CBS,NBC, CNN, PBS etc., however, this was a spontaneous criticism - not by the usual pretend pimps, but by a real pimp”.
Exactly.
Yeah, but he is also hired to flap his jaws as a "social commentator" on the highest rated afternoon-drive radio show in Chi-town.
Funny thing is that he doesn't inject too much politics into his radio gig (mostly because the show's headline personality doesn't overdo it either). He is mostly palatable for the hour or so that I listen to him.
What about Obama and the wearing his birth certificate on his forhead comment? If anything, Bush had too thick of a skin and didn’t defend himself and conservatism enough.
It’s the Sun-Times; south-side white sux and 0bama worshiping rag. And those are its good points.
Perhaps if more people were exposed to a “fetus in a jar” there would be no abortions. This should be mandatory in sex-ed classes.
What a poor excuse for a writer...he didn’t include Sarah Palin in a single slam at President Bush. Slacker!
Roeper is apparently the up-and-coming star of all media in Chicago, having been teamed with Roe Conn now on WLS for the timeslot immediately following Rush. He’s often funny and clever but there’s no doubt which side of the aisle he sits on. I don’t take anything he says any more seriously than I would a movie review.
LLS
LLS
I don’t know. He looks pretty leathery to me.
I have always loved George W. Bush. The more I learn about the man who was My President, the more respect I have for him and his family!
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