The Fall of the House of Bush

Update: I misheard or got bad info. Babs wasn't rapidly released from the hospital. But my comments still apply.......

I’m not a Joe Klein fan, but he’s got it right here:

That we have slightly more than one President for the moment is mostly a consequence of the extraordinary economic times. Even if George Washington were the incumbent, the markets would want to know what John Adams was planning to do after his Inauguration. And yet this final humiliation seems particularly appropriate for George W. Bush. At the end of a presidency of stupefying ineptitude, he has become the lamest of all possible ducks.

[…]

In the end, though, it will not be the creative paralysis that defines Bush. It will be his intellectual laziness, at home and abroad. Bush never understood, or cared about, the delicate balance between freedom and regulation that was necessary to make markets work. He never understood, or cared about, the delicate balance between freedom and equity that was necessary to maintain the strong middle class required for both prosperity and democracy. He never considered the complexities of the cultures he was invading. He never understood that faith, unaccompanied by rigorous skepticism, is a recipe for myopia and foolishness. He is less than President now, and that is appropriate. He was never very much of one.

  Time

Mommy Dearest Barbara Bush was just admitted and rapidly released from the hospital. I hear this morning that she’s “fine”. Of course she is. There wasn’t anything wrong. She’s just trying to distract or garner sympathy for the mental cripple she spawned. Oh, yes she would do such a thing.

Former first lady Barbara Bush was expected to be released from a Houston hospital on Wednesday after complaining of stomach pain

[…]

Jim McGrath, a spokesman for Bush's husband, said all the results for tests she had undergone had been negative. McGrath said former president George H.W. Bush was with her.

Bush disclosed she was suffering from an overactive thyroid ailment known as Graves' disease when she lived at the White House.

The disease causes teary eyes and double vision.

  CBC

But then, so does alcoholism. A grave disease.

Still the Same Old Babs

Mrs. Bush, on President Bush 41: "He does a lot of things, although he just had a back operation and he's recuperating. I used to always say I wanted more quality time with him - not any more."

  Politico

I often marvel that they still let Babs go out in public.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Oh yeah, like they know anything about limited income

It's my understanding that Bush's Social Security plan is dead in the water, and that they all kow it. I guess when you've fucked up everything else, there's not much to go around the country talking about.

Former first lady Barbara Bush teamed up with her son the president on Friday in trying to drum up support among older Americans for his Social Security and Medicare plans.

[...]

At a senior center, and then before an invitation-only audience at a downtown civic center, the mother and son team promoted Bush's embattled Social Security restructuring plan and the new Medicare prescription drug program that takes effect Jan. 1.

And like a vaudeville team, they kept stepping on each other's lines and zinging each other.

  Yahoo News article

You know, maybe there's a future for them after all. It could be funny if they weren't attempting to run the country.

Bush vowed that nothing in his proposal for individual investment accounts would reduce benefits for current retirees or those close to retiring. "Seniors have nothing to worry about. ... What you should be worried about is whether your grandchildren are going to get any checks," Bush said.

"I'm here because I'm worried about our 17 grandchildren," said Barbara Bush.

What? Is she cutting them out of the will? Aren't they going to get cushy jobs on their name, like her children?

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Cindy Sheehan addendum

I missed this when I posted earlier - or rather, I hadn't seen it.

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, who lost her son in Iraq, recently described a visit to the George W Bush White House in terms that suggest she saw him step right out of his skin. "His mouth kept moving, but there was nothing in his eyes," [...] "His eyes were empty, hollow shells" [... He was] repeatedly addressing the grieving parent [Sheehan] as "Ma" [...] and most disturbing, saying, I can’t even imagine losing a loved one, a mother or a father or a sister or a brother," when he had, at the age of six, lost his beloved three-year old sister Robin to leukemia.

Justin Frank writes in Bush on the Couch:

Robin died in New York in October 1953; her parents spent the next day golfing in Rye, attending a small memorial service the following day before flying back to Texas. George learned of his sister's illness only after her death, when his parents returned to Texas, where the family remained while the child's body was buried in a Connecticut family plot. There was no funeral.

  Rigorous Intuition article

I know I had read about that elsewhen, but had completely forgotten the creepiness.

Yeah, these people are heartless and soulless.