Posted on 10/21/2017 4:54:04 AM PDT by MarvinStinson
The president that mainstream journalists loved to hate for eight years is all of a sudden their favorite guy
What happened to the president they once reviled?
Mainstream media journalists are all of a sudden anxious to give the words of former President George W. Bush a full airing, and to refer to them in the most complimentary way.
Bush, wrote The Washington Post, had offered a “blunt assessment” in his speech in New York on Thursday and “warned about threats to American democracy.”
NBC News said that Bush had spoken with a "sharper edge," delivering a "clear condemnation of the current president without mentioning him by name."
But the millions of Americans who thumbed their noses at Establishment Republicans and the media, rejected Bush's brother Jeb absolutely, and voted for outsider Donald J. Trump for president last November, might have heard Bush's words differently.
Bush had started by saying democracies "face new and serious threats" but "seem to be losing confidence in their own calling and competence."
He went on to mourn an earlier era, the post-World War II era, when America, he said, benefited from the "advance of free markets" and the "strength of democratic alliances."
"Free nations are less likely to threaten and fight each other," he told the audience. "We know, deep down, that repression is not the wave of the future. We know that the desire for freedom is not confined to, or owned by, any culture; it is the inborn hope of our humanity."
He went on to say that America is not "immune" from trends that include "resurgent ethno-nationalism" and "anger about immigration."
But the most-played clips on television on Thursday night and Friday were of Bush saying: "Bigotry seems emboldened" and "We've seen nationalism distorted into nativism" and have "forgotten the dynamism that immigration has always brought to America."
Another media favorite was this one: "Our politics seems more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrication."
The former president, the most recent star player in a family with close ties to Saudi Arabia, the number-one sponsor of Sunni extremist terrorism in the world — also jumped on the bandwagon on Russia, called the formerly communist country a "hostile power" that is trying to turn Americans against one another.
Republicans were not amused.
"Wish I had never campaigned for this president. Have lost all respect for him and the family," wrote one woman on Facebook on Friday, above a news article about Bush's speech.
"George W. Bush gave us a phony war, crashed the economy and covered up the Saudi role in 9/11 — has no right to criticize," legendary politico Roger Stone tweeted on Friday morning.
Reporters who are working overtime to try to discredit Trump, however, strained to give the most credibility to Bush's remarks, with The Washington Post saying the fact that Trump has "unsettled allies abroad" and provoked a "backlash" at home has "injected [Bush's] remarks with greater urgency."
But the very day after Bush spoke these words, there was Trump meeting in the Oval Office with the secretary-general of the United Nations. And on Thursday, about the same time The Post's story was published, the president's motorcade was pulling up to the embassy of Kuwait. Where's the isolationism?
And who can forget Trump's first foreign trip, where he was treated like royalty in Saudi Arabia despite his tough talk on the need to defeat ISIS, and where he met in Israel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom former President Barack Obama had a contentious relationship, as detailed in The Post's own story from 2015, "The Roots of Why Obama and Netanyahu Dislike Each Other So Much."
Trump, in comparison, seems to be shaping out to be the most statesman-like president the United States has had in at least a generation.
But context doesn't seem an important consideration.
"The liberal media treated President Bush as an enemy for 16 years (his term and Obama's) but now that they had a new enemy in Trump, they suddenly found something worth elevating him for," the Media Research Center said in a report on Friday.
The British media, however, were somewhat less willing to boost Bush, whose presidency was marked by two wars — one in Iraq, and the other in Afghanistan — that together have taken the lives of thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of civilians in both countries. They will end up costing more than $2 trillion and have failed, as far as anyone can see, to accomplish much.
"The blood on George W. Bush's hands will never dry. Don't glorify this man," a headline in the Guardian blared on Friday.
I will ALWAYS be grateful to W for his leadership in the hard days following 9/11. Beyond that however he’s burned all my good will to a crisp.
They never had love or principles in the first place.
I have to apologize to the Reverend Jesse Jackson.
Reverend Jackson, you were right when you said “stay out of the Bushes”.
Yeah.
That there “RELIGION OF PEACE” lie is enough to destroy anything positive he ever DID, or could possibly DO.
Swamp dwellers protect their own.
Jesse Jackson’s grammar isn’t that good. He said “Stay out the Bushes.”
Horse crap, he couldn’t even catch Bin Laden.
Is Nancy Pelosi still calling the current president “Bush?”
As someone else said this morning...George took a knee when Obama was transforming America.
GWB must have found that 8 year nap durning the Obama regime refreshing.
At least Obama got Bin Laden.
Eight years, eight long insufferable years of Obama’s viscousness, corruption and lies........and not one criticism from GWB. It was because of GWB’s respect for the office.
Sad to see a once decent man take a hateful and anti-American posture.
MenSeekingMen need a new Maverick now that McLettuce is a goner, Mr.Yu-have-nothing-to-fear-from-a-President-Obama.
You’re thinking about his prosecution of the “War On Terror”. I’m not talking about his long term leadership. I’m talking about the first week or two after. Remember how stunned everyone was? I remember listening to my favorite classic rock station and for a couple of days and they were playing snippets from Billy Graham. I remember Bush throwing a strike at Yankee Stadium for the First Pitch after 9/11. Things were crazy and America was shell shocked.
You think Al Gore would have done any different?
I don’t think Al Gore would have attacked anybody. I think Al Gore would have set up a committee to help us understand the plight of Islam.
Oh.....you mean as opposed to Mr. "Islam is a Religion of Peace."
And Saddam didn't have anything to do with 9/11.
Even Mitt Romney is being pictured as “good” in comparison to The Donald. The “courageous” positions taken by Dubya in regards to the Trump Doctrine are still not very brave or even original.
Donald J. Trump is having the best time of his life, being king among kings in this world, and he is a remarkably quick study. He did not enter into this rarefied world of high political power with no clue as to the challenges and pitfalls, but has swiftly steered away from a good many of them, frequently by bold and sometimes absolutely astonishing moves that confounded and frankly baffled his rivals, leaving them with their bare faces hanging out. For all the times that his opponents, and yes, enemies, had declared “Trump is done for sure NOW!”, he has rebounded and it becomes obvious to all but the few that Trump was right all along.
Dubya has tried the oblique attack, but his cannonade still falls way short of scoring much against the primal force of nature that is Donald Trump.
Circling the wagons just before circling the drain.
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