George W. versus the Tea Party (Laura Ingraham)

PoliZette ^ | October 21, 2015 | Laura Ingraham

[Isara]

Tries to rescue brother's campaign by trash-talking Ted Cruz

We haven’t heard much from President George W. Bush during the past seven years.

After leaving office with approval numbers in the high 20s, he made a conscious decision to keep a respectful distance from Washington, to refrain from becoming the Pundit-in-Chief criticizing his successor’s every move.

“He deserves my silence,” Bush said of the newly elected Barack Obama. “I think it is essential that he be helped in office.”

Indeed, when the left was going wild in Obama’s first term, all the Bushes went mum. George W. was suddenly applauded by elites in both parties as a gallant statesman when he announced that he wouldn’t criticize his successor.

Thankfully, grassroots Republicans didn’t agree. And when the Tea Party upstarts helped the Republican Party roar back in the 2010 midterms, the Bushes knew they were revolting not only against Obama, but against Bushism.

President Bush broke his self-imposed silence in January 2011, in a speech at Southern Methodist University. The only problem was, he wasn’t attacking Obama, but conservatives. Addressing the immigration debate, he said: “(I)f you study history, there are some ‘isms’ that occasionally pop up … One is isolationism and its evil twin protectionism and its evil triplet nativism.”

These were potent insults directed at millions of hard-working patriots who helped elect him twice to the White House. Elites in both parties gleefully gobbled it up.

Now, with his younger brother Jeb’s presidential campaign sputtering, George W. is officially silent no more. The man whose own party wouldn’t feature him as a speaker at its past two conventions is trying to reclaim the GOP for the Bush family, to preserve his presidential legacy and that of his father.

At numerous closed fundraisers, George W. Bush is sounding off on the GOP field, according to a new Politico report. Sources who attended say he singled out his home state’s junior senator, Ted Cruz, for withering criticism.

“I just don’t like the guy,” he sniffed. The former president went on to call Cruz’s anti-Iran deal alliance with Donald Trump “opportunistic.”

The more I think about it, the more troubling this is. For years now, as the left has been trying to destroy the country with its open borders, a bumbling foreign policy, the health care takeover, and massive executive overreach, George W. Bush never said anything. He never criticized Obama, or Harry Reid, or Nancy Pelosi. Not when they sunk to their vicious depths to use the “war on women” against Mitt Romney. Not when they whipped up racial tensions in Eric Holder’s Justice Department. Not when they used the IRS to harass patriotic Tea Party groups.

George W. Bush never defended the people who voted for him, or explained that they aren’t guilty of all the cultural or political crimes attributed to them by the left. In fact, he essentially dumped all over the millions of conservatives who were responsible for electing him twice.

Fast forward four years. When George W. emerges in a campaign setting — when he finally breaks his silence to attack someone by name — he attacks Cruz. Apparently, while Obama deserved George W.’s respect and silence, not so for Cruz, who actually worked in his administration, and who became a U.S. senator by tapping into a wave of anti-Washington discontent. The Bushes take this as personal criticism of their family — perhaps Cruz’s biggest sin of all.

Conservatives are trying their best to sort out the post-Bush era within the Republican Party. I believe the vast majority of conservative voters — including those Tea Party voters who like Cruz — honor the Bush family for its service and would like to work with the Bushes and their supporters to build a better country. But it is disappointing to see former President Bush — a man who so many conservatives worked for and believed in — resort to behind-the-scenes attacks on someone like Cruz, who is risking his own career to fight for conservative principles.

Any partnership requires an element of trust on both sides. If conservatives believe that the Bushes — and other GOP establishment types — are attacking them behind closed doors, the trust and cooperation necessary to build a winning Republican message in 2016 may be impossible to develop.

[Isara]

FYI

[WENDLE]

He invaded the wrong damned country!!

[gwgn02]

GW is a moron.

[GulliverSwift]

I’m not a Cruz fan but if Bush keeps this up, it might make me better disposed to him.

[Gasshog]

Luv Dubya

NOT!!!

[txrefugee]

The whole Bush bunch ought to live where they feel comfortable with like-minded people....Saudi Arabia.

[Psalm 144]

The image at the article is great!

[Inyo-Mono]

The Republican Party is not conservative that’s why they dump on the likes of us.

[Psalm 144]

Not quite a full break with the Religion of Peace representative, but close. Certainly a warning shot across the bow.

[Isara]

Presidential Candidates Comparison (Cruz vs. Bush vs. Trump)

Budget, Spending & Debt
Civil Liberties
Education
Energy & Environment
Foreign Policy & Defense
Free Market
Health Care & Entitlements
Immigration
Moral Issues
Second Amendment
Taxes, Economy & Trade

More at Conservative Review: https://www.conservativereview.com/2016-presidential-candidates

Note: If you don't like the ratings for any reason, please contact Conservative Review's Editor-in-Chief, "The Great One," Mark Levin. But I have to warn you that you may get this response from him: "GET OFF THE PHONE, YOU BIG DOPE!"

[laconic]

Good analysis by Laura I. But I do disagree with her on one conclusion: I don’t like or respect the Bush family, any of them.

[Still Thinking]

Indeed, when the left was going wild in Obama’s first term, all the Bushes went mum. George W. was suddenly applauded by elites in both parties as a gallant statesman when he announced that he wouldn’t criticize his successor.

....but criticizing your predecessor, WHILE YOU'RE IN OFFICE, is just hunky dory. [eyeroll]

[vbmoneyspender]

George W. Bush never defended the people who voted for him

This is a recurring pattern with GWB. He didn't defend the troops who were fighting the Iraq War when the left attacked them all thru the end of his first term and the entirety of his second term. Bush going AWOL on defending the Iraq War made the Iraq War a much tougher slog because the jihadis (who are many things, but stupid isn't one of them) saw that the PR battle in America was being lost because Bush wasn't willing to fight it. Who knows why? Maybe Bush will explain someday what others might properly view as cowardice on his part.

[Thumper1960]

I regret that I supported and voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. I regret that I defended Bush II when the Left went after him. I am not in the least amused that George W. Bush has decided to piss all over we who "had his back" during those 8 long years.

Bush has shown his true stripes. Those stripes are not the coloring of a patriotic American. Those stripes belong to a callous, opportunistic bastard.

[DaveyB]

The Republican party has consistently opposed the tea-party. That they preferred Harry Reid to Sharron Angle speaks volumes. Need I mention Joe Miller and Christine O’Donnell. The Republican party has fought harder against the tea party than against the Democrats. The GOPe despises conservatives and loathes especially social issue conservatives. They will accept your money and your vote and then kindly ask you to shut the h3ll up.

[Zenjitsuman]

At the first debate the Question was

Everyone raise their hands if they vow to support the winner of the nomination of the GOP.

Everyone but Trump raised their hand.

Lets ask that again. Trump took the pledge, now lets see if the same question is asked if they will support Trump or Cruz if they win.

If not Trump should reneg on the pledge. Its a two way street. Conservatives are the base, the GOPe are the losers for years, a drag on the party, and liars.

They won’t go after Obama, or keep their campaign promises but like Bush they will use all the levers of power to marginalize the conservative base.

Reagan said the Democrats left him, I feel the Republicans left me.

[LeoWindhorse]

W has always been in the thrall of Karl Rove and he still seems to be . Karl Rove somehow convinced him to go with the media promoted narrative that ‘ no WMD’s were found in Iraq ‘ , when in fact they were , thus giving the goddamned Dems tons of ammo , up until now . Karl Rove single-handedly went around in 2010 trying his level best to undermine and threaten local and state Republican parties NOT to support the Tea party elements in their states/communities , and to ‘occupy ‘ them and dissolve them wherever and whenever possible . Why in the world W tied his legacy to this stupid little dwarf troll I cannot imagine . Maybe Rove is a hypnotist? In any case W seems to be parroting for Rove again these days .

Get a life W ! Think for your own damn self !

[Psalm 144]

A lot of feel the same. I was amazed at my father’s extreme dislike of W back in the day. He counted off all the ways he found W false and damaging. Time proved him right, though he did not live to see it, which may have been a mercy.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Don't regret anything you did in the past. Nearly all of FR defended Bush day in and day out (Remember the "Day in the Life of President Bush" threads?). He was still better than Gore, and of course, Kerry.

What you do know is learn from it, and realize that the Bushes has always been about themselves, their fellow ruling elites, and internationalists desperate to see the U.S. become a 3rd-world country. Bush's comments, if they are true, makes my decision to turn my nose up at Jeb so much easier. I have no intention of voting for Jeb, or any other Republican candidate that doesn't reverse the destruction that Obama did.

[Georgia Girl 2]

Dubya doesn’t have the stones to attack Trump who is blatantly calling him out because he doesn’t want the ghetto beatdown so he goes after Cruz. Of all people the guy who is classy and trying to play by the 11th commandment. Then Cruz comes back with a really high road reply to Bush’s attack. Commendable. Makes GW look petty and mean spirited which for all I know he may be.

I have totally run out of give a chit on GW Bush. I voted for the Maroon twice and defended him endlessly as he did one thing after another I disagreed with. He should STFU and stay that way and call his mother and tell her to make Jebbie drop out.