Last Call For Obama Makes The Grade

Now out of office, Barack Obama can officially be ranked by C-SPAN's tabulation by presidential historians, and the man from Hawaii ends up in the 12 spot, maybe not Mount Rushmore territory, but certainly one of the better chief executives we've had.

Former President Barack Obama was ranked 12th best among 43 former presidents in in C-SPAN’s third-ever survey of dozens of presidential historians.

The network asked 91 presidential historians to rank every former president on 10 leadership attributes. C-SPAN also performed the survey in 2000 and 2009. 

Obama ranked favorably compared to his immediate predecessors: George W. Bush ranked at No. 33 (up from 36 in 2009), George H.W. Bush was No. 20 (down from 18), and Bill Clinton held steady at No. 15. 

Ronald Reagan was judged the ninth best president of all time, up from No. 10 in 2009.
In a press release accompanying the results, historian Richard Norton Smith, an academic adviser for the project, noted that five of the top 10 judged presidents in the American pantheon served between 1933 and 1969. 

“It reinforces Franklin Roosevelt's claim to be not only the first modern president but the man who, in reinventing the office, also established the criteria by which we judge our leaders,” he said.

The full list:

So yeah, for those of you playing at home, Dubya moved up a few notches into "C-plus Augustus" territory, and James "Oops I accidentally The Civil War" Buchanan still sets the nadir for the office. Reagan, still silly overrated, and Big Dog's still hanging at 15. Jimmy Carter is in the middle of the pack at 26, and Poppy Bush rounds out the top 20.

One has to wonder where The Donald will end up on this list.  I'm betting south of Hoover.

The Shrub And The Schlub

Don't look now, but after eight years of puttering around his ranch and taking up the joys of painting, former President George W. Bush will apparently show up at The Donald's Fascist Cotillion/Roller Derby later this month.

In a statement Tuesday, Bush's office said the couple is “pleased to be able to witness the peaceful transfer of power — a hallmark of American democracy — and swearing-in of President Trump and Vice President Pence.” 

The decision makes Bush the second living president planning to attend Trump's inauguration ceremony. Former President Jimmy Carter said last year that he would attend. 

Former President George H.W. Bush, 92, is not expected to be at the ceremony. His spokesman cited his age in a statement to Politico last month about the president's decision. 

Former President Bill Clinton has not announced whether he will be at the event after Trump’s contentious presidential race against his wife, Hillary Clinton.

President Obama is expected, as is customary, to attend inauguration events at the Capitol before departing.

Ol' Dubya has to be stoked.  Trump instantly gets him off the bottom of the barrel spot of the worst post-Civil War presidents in US history (and hey, I understand that Nixon guy was pretty much a treasonous bastard so that actually might help Junior Birdman here not finish dead last when the next set of history books come out) so he's got that going for him,

I kinda hope Bill Clinton shows up, drops trow and moons Trump on the way out though, I'm not going to lie.

Meet The Old Boss, Wish He Was The New Boss

Given the less-than-thrilling choices ahead of us this November, America is starting to miss Barack Obama as president already. I'm right there with them.

As the race to succeed President Barack Obama rages around him, the man who currently sits in the Oval Office has hit his highest approval rating since his second inauguration, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows. 

Fifty-one percent of registered voters say they approve of the job Obama is doing as president, compared to 46 percent who disapprove. 

The last time more than half of the electorate gave Obama a thumbs up in the poll was in January 2013, when Obama took the oath of office after his successful re-election campaign against Republican Mitt Romney. His approval rating sunk as low as 40 percent before the 2014 midterm elections but subsequently rebounded, particularly since primary voting in the 2016 presidential race got underway at the beginning of this year. 

Obama's approval rating remains dismal with self-described Republicans, who disapprove of his performance by an 88 percent to eight percent margin. It's nearly the inverse image for Democrats, who approve of the job Obama is doing by 88 percent to 11 percent. And more than half - 54 percent - of independents give Obama high marks, compared to 44 percent who do not. 

Voters overall were less enthusiastic about the idea of electing Obama to a third term in office if such a move was allowed by the Constitution, although about four-in-ten respondents said they were willing to entertain the idea. Fifty-nine percent said they would not consider voting for a third Obama term, while 39 percent said they would consider it. That's compared to 34 percent who said they would consider voting for a third term for Bill Clinton in September 2000.

Granted, 2000 wasn't exactly Clinton's best year, but still, where was Dubya in spring 2008? Somewhere in the 20's by now?   Seeing Obama above water despite the daily programmed hatred of the man by the right-wing noise machine just goes to show you that if Republicans were reasonable instead of being the bugnuts party of Trump, Obama would be staking out future real estate on Mount Rushmore.

It tells you just how badly we're going to miss the guy, despite my grumblings about his foreign policy.

Jeb Comes To Jesus

It looks like Bush, Inc. is making some frank decisions about the candidacy of Jeb, and the big guns are coming out to try to save him.

Jeb Bush will attend a finance meeting this weekend in Houston convened by former President George H. W. Bush and attended by Bush's brother, former President George W. Bush, CBS News has learned.

The session, designed to assess where Bush's candidacy stands in the face of large-scale staff cutbacks and underwhelming poll numbers, will also be attended by Bush's mother, Barbara Bush. The governor's campaign confirmed the meeting will be held Sunday and Monday.

CBS News has also learned George W. Bush will headline a fundraiser for Jeb Bush in Georgetown (Washington, DC) on Oct. 29. The fundraising email, which went out earlier this week, was sent by George W. Bush's two former chiefs of staff, Andy Card and Josh Bolten. Jeb Bush will not attend the fund-raiser.

The email, sent to Bush-Cheney alumni, praised Bush's "extraordinary record of accomplishment and conservative innovation" and said that George W. Bush "looks forward to seeing his old friends at this event and to sharing his enthusiasm for Jeb's candidacy." Bolten and Card suggested that for those who can't make the event, there would be "other opportunities around the country," and the email closed, "Your help today will help position Jeb for a successful outcome."

The event underscores the need for the former Florida governor to lean on his brother's fund-raising prowess to aid his struggling campaign.

Don Poppy, Barbara and Dubya are making it clear that playtime is over and the "real adults" are in charge of Jeb's campaign now.  He's blowing it, and the operatives are now taking over the reins. Their first act is getting the rabble back in line and that line is "Jeb will be the nominee and next President" and all the weight of the Bush network is being brought to bear.

We'll see just how much power the Bush crime family has left these days.  It's still considerable, but enough to counter the rage of the Tea Party and the rise of Trump/Carson as clear front-runners?

I don't know about that one.  But I'm still not convinced Jeb's done.  There's still tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars, and that will keep him in the race through at least the early primary states.

After that though, who knows.

Am-Bushed On The Internets

This is simultaneously awesome and horrific.

The apparent hack of several e-mail accounts has exposed personal photos and sensitive correspondence from members of the Bush family, including both former U.S. presidents, The Smoking Gun has learned.

Oh awesome.

Included in the hacked material is a confidential October 2012 list of home addresses, cell phone numbers, and e-mails for dozens of Bush family members, including both former presidents, their siblings, and their children. The posted photos and e-mails contain a watermark with the hacker’s online alias, “Guccifer.”

Correspondence obtained by the hacker indicates that at least six separate e-mail accounts have been compromised, including the AOL account of Dorothy Bush Koch, daughter of George H.W. Bush and sister of George W. Bush. Other breached accounts belong to Willard Heminway, 79, an old friend of the 41st president who lives in Greenwich, Connecticut; CBS sportscaster Jim Nantz, a longtime Bush family friend; former first lady Barbara Bush’s brother; and George H.W. Bush’s sister-in-law.

Both Heminway and Nantz corresponded with Bush, 88, about playing golf and visiting the Bush compound in Kennebunkport, Maine.

The hacked e-mails, sent between 2009 and 2012, include correspondence between Nantz and George W. Bush’s scheduler about an October 2010 golf outing in Dallas. One e-mail includes the street address for Bush, 66, as well as the four-digit code Nantz needed to enter at a security gate. A second e-mail includes details of where Nantz and Bush planned to have dinner after their Saturday golf outing.

One of the hacked Heminway e-mails was sent to him by Brit Hume, the Fox News political analyst, days after the 2012 presidential election. “Election outcome disappointing, but there are many silver linings,” Hume wrote in the November 9 e-mail.

Our liberal media?

Look folks, hacking the email accounts of the Bush family is probably one of the all time worst ideas I can think of.  Poppy Bush was former head of the CIA and well as president, and Dubya, well, he's a vindictive little jackass, so yeah, there will be a head rolling at some point.

But hey, some stronger privacy laws on the internet might be a good idea, yeah?

They Have A Taco Bar?

And now, a Cinco de Mayo message from former President Bush 43.

President Bush Reacts to Osama Bin Laden's Death with Will Ferrell from Will Ferrell
 

Meanwhile, the actual Dubya is way too busy being pissed off that Obama won't give him credit for finding bin Laden (after of course Bush shut down the program that was hunting him in 2006) to join President Obama in Manhattan today, mainly because it would take away from Dubya's "me" time.

Not Quite As Stupid As Once Thought

Dubya may be a dimwit, but he's smart enough not to be in the same town at the same time as Wikileaks' founder Julian Assange.

George W. Bush said Friday he will not visit Denver this weekend as planned because WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was invited to attend one of the same events as the former president.

Bush planned to be at a Young Presidents' Organization "Global Leadership Summit" Saturday but backed out when he learned Assange was invited, Bush spokesman David Sherzer said.

It was unlikely that Assange would have attended in person. The Denver Post reported he appeared at the conference Friday by video link.

Assange has been in Britain fighting extradition to Sweden in a sex crimes inquiry, and his lawyers have raised fears that he could be arrested by U.S. authorities investigating whether Assange and WikiLeaks illegally distributed secret government documents.

WikiLeaks has released tens of thousands of U.S. military documents on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and on U.S. diplomatic efforts worldwide, deeply angering U.S. officials.

Sherzer said Bush doesn't want to be part of a forum that invited someone who has "willfully and repeatedly done great harm to the interests of the United States."

And as awesome as this would have been to see for us, Bush is smart enough to know that nothing possibly good for him would have come from this.  At all.  Give your handlers a raise, Dubya.  They're smarter than Palin's crew, at any rate.

Could Care Less

In his new book I'm The Deciderer or whatever it's called that's out today, former President George W. Bush says the low point of his Presidential career was Kanye West hurting his feelings after Katrina.  BooMan puts that into perspective:

You know, Kayne West didn't say that President Bush was a racist. He said that President Bush didn't care about black people. You don't have to hate someone to not care about them. You don't have to feel superior to someone to not give a crap if they're drowning. If you're a sociopath, it's really quite easy to not care about people in dire need.

And isn't that the truth.  I can see why the GOP asked Bush to delay the book until the week after the midterms, because he would have been the Dems' best weapon.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

Leave it to the Washington Examiner to concoct the dumbest Obama attack yet:  our President is in shape, and we need one built like Peter Griffin from Family Guy, dammit!

Last week, President Obama strolled the beaches for a photo op with Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a self-described "fat redneck." Our beanpole president made quite a contrast to the chubby gov, who, as the New York Times noted Sunday, resembles "an adult version of Spanky from the Little Rascals."

Newsweek calls Barbour "the anti-Obama," but the Times downplayed his presidential prospects. Apparently, Haley needs to slim down if he's serious.

Is corpulence really a disqualification for the presidency in the land of supersized fries? If so, that's a shame.

America might do better with a fat president. After all, some of our best have been big fellows, and lately the trim and ambitious types haven't served us so well.

"Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look; he thinks too much. Such men are dangerous," Shakespeare's Julius Caesar comments to Marc Antony. "Let me have men about me that are fat ... such as sleep o' nights."

Point of order, wasn't Clinton savaged for being the President that at at McDonald's?  Isn't "Al Gore is fat" a running joke with the right even now?  And now they're going after Obama because he's not fat enough?  What, does being in shape now mean you're not a Real American?  I'm sure that's new to Dubya, who actually was one of the most physically fit Presidents we ever had, the guy worked out all the damn time, rode his bike, cleared brush, etc.  Bush may have been a lot of things, but out of shape wasn't one of them.

Apparently Obama on the other hand is just too...fit?  And yet, given the right wing attacks on Michelle Obama's anti-obesity initiative for Americans and the White House garden, this is the logical next step in the Obama Derangement progression:  Obama (and his wife, and his soccer-playing children) are too much in shape to be Real Americans.

Man, it never ends with these guys, does it?  If Obama was a big guy like myself, we'd never hear the end about how he was too fat.  But since he and his family are in shape, he's being attacked for being in shape.  Doesn't matter...Obama Derangement Syndrome always finds a way.

Meanwhile, Back At The Crawford Ranch

Ol' Dubya is still getting the hang of this "ex-President" thing, getting one of those Facey-Bookie things on the internets and all, but he really should learn not to admit to international war crimes he committed while in office.  He's going to need a little help on that.

Speaking to a crowd in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Wednesday, former president George W. Bush told onlookers that his administration did in fact waterboard alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and suggested that his action saved American lives.

"Yeah, we water-boarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed," Bush said, according to a local newspaper. "I'd do it again to save lives."

Somewhere, Dick Cheney just threw a cute animal down a flight of stairs.  The thing is, we waterboarded this guy over and over and over again, and it didn't save any lives, because the guy told us whatever we wanted to hear to stop waterboarding him instead of actual intelligence we could have used.

You would also think Dubya there would have the grace not to brag about breaking the Geneva Conventions and admit to torturing people, which if he went to a country that actually paid attention to international law, well some enforcement officials in crisp uniforms might want to have a word with him.

Reflects rather poorly on us, yes?

What Are They Angry About?

The Teabaggers are pissed off.  We know that much.  But why?  As Steve Benen notes, they went insane a month after President Obama signed the largest tax cut in history for 95% of America. and complained Americans were taxed too much.

National Review published a couple of items recently about President Obama having cut taxes for 95% of working families. This is, in reality, what happened, but the conservative magazine was incredulous. "If the taxes of 95 percent of Americans actully [sic] had been cut, surely somebody other than Obama would have noticed," one NR writer put it.

It was a curious argument. It doesn't matter what President Obama did -- in this case, approval of a tax cut -- it matters what people perceive, even if the perceptions are patently false.

And perhaps no group of people is fueled more intensely by misperceptions of reality than the Tea Party crowd.

Of people who support the grassroots, "Tea Party" movement, only 2 percent think taxes have been decreased, 46 percent say taxes are the same, and a whopping 44 percent say they believe taxes have gone up.

Now, we know that this 44% is wrong. We also know that in nearly every instance, the 46% are wrong, too. Indeed, my challenge to them would be to go look at their most recent paystub, and then dig up their paystub from, say, December 2008, before Obama took office. The math isn't that hard -- did their tax rate go up, down, or stay the same? Opinions and perceptions are nice, but arithmetic can be stubborn.

But as this relates to politics, John Cole noted that these folks "don't even know what they are mad about." Indeed, it's easy to forget this, but the first Tea Party crowds started protesting in March 2009 -- exactly one month after President Obama signed one of the largest tax-cut packages in American history into law. The protestors wanted to make clear that they are "taxed enough already," choosing to pretend that they hadn't just received a tax cut from the president they hate so intensely.

So it's not the taxes they are angry about.  It's not the government spending...that was Bush who spent far more and not a word out of the Tea Party.  If it's taxes and spending the Teabaggers tell you they are against, they are lying.  Period.  It's not government growth.  After 9/11 Bush and the Republicans created the PATRIOT Act, the TSA, a host of federal agencies and new layers of bureaucracy, and of course got us into two wars that cost us thousands of soldiers and trillions of dollars.  Not a peep from the Teabaggers.  So the Tea Party is lying about the size of government too.  Wasn't the bailout.  Bush started that.  Henry Paulson insisted we needed to pay off trillions to the banks to keep America afloat.  They are lying if they are telling you Obama's bailout of the banks is the problem.

Democrats came to power in 2006 in Congress.  No Tea Party movement then.  So it's not "We're mad at the Democrats."  Another lie.  Tea Party movement didn't come until after Obama took office: Feb 19, 2009.  Wasn't health care.  McCain had a health care plan too.  Wasn't the stimulus.  Bush signed into law a stimulus plan too.  Remember your tax rebate check in 2008?

What's different?  What's left that remains?  It's not Obama's political party or leanings.  It's not government spending or taxation or the size of government.  Why the massive populist outrage now?

What's the one thing that's left?

Obama is primarily famous for being the first what, exactly?  What's different about Obama compared to the first 43 Presidents this country has had?

Answer that question and you know why the Teabaggers are really mad.  They are deluding themselves with all these fantasies to cover up the truth about why they hate Obama.

And nobody in the Village dares call them on it.

I will.  Racism is an ugly, ugly thing.

[UPDATE 11:50 AM]  Nope.  Sorry.  Wasn't the Great Recession either or the millions of jobs lost:  That too started on Bush's watch and all throughout 2008.  No Tea Party then, either. 

If McCain were President, we'd not have the stimulus, so unemployment would be higher, and you wouldn't have the tax cut, so your taxes would be higher too.  But there would be no Tea Party Movement.

Again, what's the only reason that's left, folks?

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

This week's Bobblespeak Translations are up with Dubya and Big Dog on Haiti:

Gregory: Bush what’s your biggest concern
right now?

Bush: them Cowboys have no defense!

Gregory: Bill?

Clinton: the Haitian police force is on the job
- with no uniforms or weapons

Gregory: ok - should the US colonize Haiti?

Clinton: oh no - just an agreement allowing the
US temporary control of the area

Native Americans: uh oh

Bush: I’ve been through crises but people will
forget after a while

Gregory: like how you were president on 9/11?

Bush: no there were no attacks when I was President - just ask Saint Rudy

Clinton: I believe Haiti will be back and better
than ever!

Gregory: jesus you’re an optimist

Clinton: look at my life - wouldn’t you be?

Never get tired of these guys.  The BT take on John Yoo vs. Jon Stewart made my sides hurt.

What's Good For The Dubya

...doesn't apply to Obama because he's a Democrat, you see.  Steve Benen details the very similar conditions surrounding shoe bomber Richard Reid to Obama's Crotch Bomber, and lo and behold, Obama's getting pounded on by the "liberal press" for having a stronger response than Bush did.

Now let's compare the previous administration's response to a nearly identical terrorist plot -- Richard Reid's failed shoe-bomb attack (the same chemical, the same target, the same intended consequence, in same month of the year, with the same twisted ideology). Consider these two weeks:

Dec. 22: Reid's attempt fails.

Dec. 28: Bush hosts a press conference from his Texas ranch. In his opening statement, the president makes no reference to the terrorist attempt. Reporters ask Bush 15 questions, zero about the Reid incident. The president references the failed attack anyway, saying a total of 89 words on the subject.

Dec. 29: The president reads his weekly radio address. He makes no reference to the attempted terrorism.

Dec. 31: Bush again chats with reporters at a media availability in Crawford. Reporters ask Bush 10
questions, zero about the Reid incident. Again, Bush referenced the matter briefly, saying 53 words on the subject.

Jan. 4: Karen Hughes hosts a briefing for reporters. There were no questions about the Reid incident, and the subject wasn't addressed.

Jan. 5: The president reads another weekly radio address, and makes no reference to the attempted terrorism. Later that day, Bush appears at two public events, one in California, the other in Oregon. The shoe-bombing incident doesn't come up at all at either event.

Do you notice a difference between the two weeks after the Abdulmutallab plot and the two weeks after the Reid plot? Tell me -- which of these two presidents seemed to respond to the attempted attacks more forcefully, more seriously, and with more depth?

So once again, the standard for Obama is much much higher than the one for Bush.  Bush does less and gets a pass, Obama does more and immediately gets attacked for not doing enough.

Of course, maybe it's because Republicans refuse to deal in actual facts.

President Obama yesterday took personal responsibility for failures in the Christmas day terror plot, but Rudy Giuliani still isn’t convinced.

I spoke to the former mayor of New York City this morning on GMA, who assailed the Obama administration’s decisions on national security.

“What he [Obama] should be doing is following the right things that Bush did -- one of the right things he did was treat this as a war on terror. We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We’ve had one under Obama,” Giuliani said. “Number two, he should correct the things that Bush didn’t do right. Sending people to Yemen was wrong, not getting this whole intelligence thing corrected.”

Giuliani seems to have forgotten about the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and shoe bomber Richard Reid.

If even Snuffy here is calling out Rudy on his mendacious bullshit,  you know it's reached the point where even the Village can't prop up the GOP Pretty Hate Machine any more on this.  The evidence that the GOP is making a political football out of this is just too overwhelming.

Intellectual Dishonesty 101

The lovely folks over at National Review Class A Minor League Affiliate: Internets Division American Thinker have put Laurie Regan up to bat to say Al Gore's intellectually dishonest (and by proxy, every single Democrat)  because one of Laurie's friends landed a global warming zinger at him at a restaurant.

No really, that's her entire argument.

As the Gore party started walking out of the room, my colleague called out, "Hey, Al, how's all that global warming working out for you?" Gore turned around and stared at us with a completely dumbfounded look on his face. He was speechless. With a smile, my colleague repeated the question, again to a hapless look of dismay.

Finally, Gore mumbled under his breath, "Wow, you sound awfully angry." I responded with a thank you, explaining to him that we were actually extremely amused. The encounter concluded with Gore's friend mouthing a very animated "f--- you" at us, and they skulked away. My only regret is that no one at the table asked Gore, "What's the matter? The polar bear's got your tongue?"

What struck me the most about this meeting was Gore's complete inability to utter a sentence addressing his life's work. The former Vice President, Nobel Prize laureate, and Academy Award-winning producer standing before us was a moron, unable to articulate a simple comeback to address all that he has stood for since leaving office. He could have simply ignored us and kept walking, as he does with reporters, but by stopping and standing there dumbstruck, he looked like a fool. 

To recap, ambushing a former vice-president at a restaurant  in a sophomoric and juvenile manner is proof Al Gore is stupid because he didn't say "Yeah, well I was globally warming your mom last night, asshole."

Such thinkers these Americans be.  But then Laurie quintuples down on the stupid:

(More after the jump...)

The Last Twenty Years According To Republicans: A Play In Three Acts

Act The First: "Bill Clinton was the worst President ever.  He destroyed our economy and allowed 9/11 to happen so we impeached his ass."

Act The Second: "George W. Bush was the best President ever.  He protected America from terrorists, got that Saddam Hussein bastard that caused 9/11 and the economy was great."

Act The Third:  "Barack Obama is the worst President ever.  In one year he destroyed the Bush economy and almost let another 9/11 happen.  We should impeach his ass."

Fin.

I hear Moose Lady loves the book on tape version of the play, too.

[UPDATE 12:13 PM]  To recap, stock prices and home prices are lower now than they were ten years ago when Clinton was President.

This is all of course clearly Obama's fault for not fixing America in 2009.

[UPDATE 2 3:25 PM]  As Doug at Balloon Juice reminds us...there was a net zero job creation in this country over the last decade as well.



We would have come up with a net job loss for the decade without the stimulus. Even the 70's under Jimmy Carter were far, far better for Americans than the last ten years. Eight of those last ten were under George W. Bush. You do the math.

And yet our liberal media has convinced America that the problem was Clinton in '01 and Obama in '09.

The Thing From The Bunker Returns

You knew Dick Cheney was eventually going to open his mouth on last week's attack and say something wildly disgraceful and stupid.  He did not disappoint this morning, and Steve Benen is equally merciless in shutting the Dick down.

It was only a matter of time before Dick Cheney decided to trash the president again.

"As I've watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think if he has a low key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won't be at war."

Let's review a few pesky details. First, it was Cheney's administration that released some of the alleged terrorists who plotted the attack into an "art therapy rehabilitation program" in Saudi Arabia, only to see them become terrorist leaders in Yemen. It was also Cheney's administration that gave Abdulmutallab a visa to enter the United States in the first place.

Second, let's compare some "low-key responses." President Obama addressed a failed terrorist attack three days after it occurred. Eight years ago, when a terrorist tried to blow up an airplane under nearly identical circumstances, then-President Bush waited six days before making brief, cursory public remarks. Five days after the attempted terrorist attack, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused substantive comment altogether, telling reporters, "That's a matter that's in the hands of the law enforcement people." A White House spokesperson would only say at the time that officials were "continuing to monitor events."

Democrats, at the time, didn't launch an assault against the Bush administration, and we didn't see Al Gore condemning the White House. It simply didn't occur to Democrats in 2001 to use the attempted mass murder of hundreds of Americans to undermine the presidency.

Eight years later, Dick Cheney believes his principal responsibility is to destroy President Obama -- the man Americans chose to clean up the messes Cheney left as a parting gift after eight years of abject failure.

It's gotten to the point where Cheney is a national embarrassment.  I can't honestly think of any single person with less credibility on American national security right now than Cheney, and that includes Bush, who has wisely kept his mouth shut.  Every time Cheney criticizes Obama, he does so with eight years of buffoonery hanging around his neck.  Any American's response to this nonsense needs to be that of Benen's:  your failures in office made this attack possible, so you have no leg to stand on.

Cheney needs to be dismissed out of hand.  The White House's continuing policy of ignoring the old douchebag is the right one.

He is irrelevant.

Obama Derangement Syndrome, Explosive Clothing Edition

Politico's Dan Gerstein points out Obama is getting crap-hammered by angry Republicans for last week's failed airliner attack...but eight years ago, Democrats were much more supportive of Bush after shoe-bomber Richard Reid's failed attack.

Eight years ago, a terrorist bomber’s attempt to blow up a transatlantic airliner was thwarted by a group of passengers, an incident that revealed some gaping holes in airline security just a few months after the attacks of Sept. 11. But it was six days before President George W. Bush, then on vacation, made any public remarks about the so-called “shoe bomber,” Richard Reid, and there were virtually no complaints from the press or any opposition Democrats that his response was sluggish or inadequate.

That stands in sharp contrast to the withering criticism President Barack Obama has received from Republicans and some in the press for his reaction to Friday’s incident on a Northwest Airlines flight heading for Detroit.

Democrats have seized on the disparity and are making it a centerpiece of their efforts to counter GOP attacks on the White House. “This hypocrisy demonstrates Republicans are playing politics with issues of national security and terrorism,” DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan said. “That they would use this incident as an opportunity to fan partisan flames…tells you all you need to know about how far the Republican party has fallen and how out of step with the American people they have become.”

The Democrats’ counterattack is aimed largely at two Republican congressmen who have been particularly critical of Obama, Reps. Pete Hoekstra (R-N.Y.) and Peter King (R-N.Y.). But neither GOP lawmaker will concede applying a double standard to Obama.

Of course not.  Didn't you know Obama is the worst human being on Earth?  Didn't you know that Muslim terrorists have super powers?  Didn't you know that everything wrong in the last 15 years was either Clinton or Obama's fault?

But that's just how the GOP rolls.  Everything is just another opportunity to attack the Kenyan Usurper.

[UPDATE 10:09 AM]  John Cole notes that the day before, Politico was playing the Obama Blew It Angle just like the rest of the Village.  Calvinball, indeed.

A Different Response

Steve Benen argues that Obama's decidedly non-Bushian response to this weekend's blown airline attack is yet another indication of the President's cool and collected competence.

In the Bush/Cheney era, we know officials read from a far different script. Incidents like these became opportunities to exploit. Top officials -- Bush, Cheney, Rice, Ashcroft, Ridge -- would fan out and start hitting the talking points. There'd be talk about invading Yemen. Maybe the Bush gang would get a bump in the polls, maybe Dems and administration critics would hold their fire for a few days. If they didn't, the White House could take comfort in knowing that critics would be accused of "aiding and abetting" terrorists by attacking the Commander in Chief in the wake of a crisis.

Obama and his team obviously prefer a far more mature, strategic approach. It's about projecting a sense of calm and control. It's about choosing not to elevate some lunatic thug who set himself on fire.

Indeed, notice the pattern throughout the year. The Obama administration has taken out Saleh al-Somali, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, and Baitullah Mehsud, while taking suspected terrorists Najibullah Zazi, Talib Islam, and Hosam Maher Husein Smadi into custody before they could launch potential attacks.

In each case, there were no high-profile press conferences, no public chest-thumping, no desire to politicize the counter-terrorism successes. Indeed, most of the country probably never heard a word about any of these developments.

It's about competent and effective leadership, and it's what the country was sorely lacking up until 11 months ago.

He has a valid point:  Bush would have called a press conference yesterday.  Cheney would have made his remarks from his bunker.  Skeletor would have been on the Sunday shows along with Mukasey and Condi.  We would be hearing how only luck saved us, and that Bush would be expecting Democrats to sign off on a raft of strict new airport security procedures.  The Village would be told to measure the support for hitting Yemen.  Cheney especially would be arguing for another invasion, calling it an act of war and that Yemen would soon be getting the Iraq treatment.

Cheney will still be arguing for that.  Except now the world can safely ignore him, especially since 7 years of "making us safer" still wasn't able to stop this guy.  What credibility would he have in a just, sane America?

Why, none, as it should be.  The adults are in charge now.

[UPDATE 11:37 AM]  What Betty Cracker said.  And also, Rep. Pete Hoekstra can basically go screw himself.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) told Fox News' Chris Wallace Sunday that it is "fair" to hold the Obama administration responsible for the a failure to detect an attempted terror attack. Friday, Hoekstra told the Detroit Free Press that the Obama administration needed to "connect the dots."

"You were quoted in the Detroit Free Press this morning as saying that, you know, the key is to connect the dots and maybe the Obama administration will now realize that. Is it really fair to hold the Obama administration responsible here?" asked Wallace.

"Yeah, I think it really is," replied Hoekstra. "Connecting the dots here is not really on this particular case. It's connecting the dots that we've seen over the last 11 months, over the last eight years."

The same people who said "It's not fair to hold Bush responsible for every single thing" wrong with America after seven years since the last shoe bomber attacked an airline are of course the ones who say it's perfectly reasonable to hold Obama accountable after 11 months.

Last Call

It's not that Dana Perino necessarily lied here when she says that "No terrorists attacked America during President Bush's term."  She clearly misspoke.

It's the fact that nobody on Hannity's show even bothers to correct her that is the problem.

FOX.  Fair and balanced.

Last Call Plus

What the hell is Ezra Klein talking about?

Matt Yglesias and Kevin Drum are chewing over the hefty bipartisan support Bush got for his various domestic initiatives. The roll call is impressive: No Child Left Behind, the 2001 tax cut, the post-9/11 war resolution, Sarbanes-Oxley, McCain-Feingold, the Iraq war resolution, the 2003 tax cut, the Medicare prescription drug bill and the bankruptcy bill.

To make a bit of a heretical point, most of those cases prove that Bush's domestic agenda was a capitulation to liberalism, not that Democrats were spineless wimps. NCLB and the Medicare prescription drug bill were both longtime Democratic ideas. The problem with NCLB was implementation, and while the problem with Medicare Part D was that its design was a giveaway to drug companies, it was also hundreds and hundreds of billions funneled towards the largest expansions of Medicare since the program's creation. Health-care reform, in particular, would likely be impossible if the prescription drug benefit hadn't been accomplished. There'd be no way to add that money to the bottom line of the bill and pay for everything. Democrats owe Bush a debt of gratitude for tossing that onto the deficit.

No Ezra, this actually proves three things:

1. The Overton Window is far to the right in hindsight that Dubya's country club moderate Republicanism douchebaggery counts as liberalism these days.  That's a problem both with the Village and with the Democratic party's lack of progressiveness as a whole.  Just because Bush bankrupted the nation by spending trillions we didn't have doesn't make it liberalism, it makes it stupid.
   
2. Democrats are still spineless wimps.  They're even dumber that they thought Dubya was going to share credit with them.  If anything, the Wingers blame the Democrats for all the things Ezra listed (and Bush too.)
   
3. Ezra's been staring into the abyss a wee bit too long, not only is it staring back, it's writing posts for him.