November 27, 2011

"Bush would be regarded as a lefty today."

From Crack Skull Bob, documenting this morning's talking heads:



Brilliant, as always. I love the Jon Huntsman:



See and read the whole thing.

24 comments:

Bruce Hayden said...

Not really. While not nearly as strong as many of us would have liked on the economy, his foreign and defense policy is right on the money - guaranteed, with Dr. Rice at State, we wouldn't have had nearly the problems we have had the last year with Muslims, and wouldn't have attacked our Pakistani "allies". Plus, no artificial exist strategies and time lines.

edutcher said...

Assuming he meant Dubya he was regarded as a Lefty then, but only on domestic issues, as Bruce notes.

In terms of war and foreign policy, he was as Right as they come.

ricpic said...

If the definition of lefty is spends money like there's no tomorrow and grows government exponentially, then yeah, Bush was a lefty. And more effectively so, because of his artfully crafted regular guy not too bright image, than exotic uber-urban Upper Westsider or Harvard hates America lefties.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Matthews had two Brits [including loony Andrew Sullivan] on his show and four libruls in all.

Tim said...

Funny, yes, but politics distorts reality; worse yet, "entertainment" (or does one prefer "art"?) distorts politics even more so.

When one's sense of politics is informed by one's entertainment or art, one's sense of politics relationship to reality is so distorted as to be, at best, useless, or, more likely, dangerous.

Garbage in, garbage out.

Roux said...

I saw the show and basically any white man who does not have a college degree is a racist. Oh, and their fearless leader is Rush Limbaugh. At least according to the idiotic panel.

Give it a rest lefties, you are the ones that are delusional.

David said...

Translation: The present Republican candidates are crazy right wing idiots.

Blahblahbalh.

Joe said...

In domestic politics, I always considered Bush II a lefty. As one example; No Child Left Behind is about as left as you can get. (And let's not forget Bush's disdain for the the first amendment.)

Bruce Hayden said...

If the definition of lefty is spends money like there's no tomorrow and grows government exponentially, then yeah, Bush was a lefty. And more effectively so, because of his artfully crafted regular guy not too bright image, than exotic uber-urban Upper Westsider or Harvard hates America lefties.

Of course, this is all speculation, but I just don't see Bush (43) signing on to permanently increase the federal baseline by 5% or so of GDP and a trillion dollars a year. What must be remembered is that Bush looked like a big spender until we compare him to Obama and the 111th Congress. And, then he almost looks frugal.

Hagar said...

W's Big Deal was Iraq, so he let Democrats have their way domestically (and Laura is a former school librarian, so there there was some domestic domestic pressure).

Carol_Herman said...

Comedy gold is still ahead.

While the failures of OWS and UC-Davis "pepper spray" ... have already gone into the background.

All the cartoonists work for the left wing media, anyway.

While when was the last time the New Yorker brought forth a cartoon that went viral?

Steve M. Galbraith said...

This comes from the same Andrew Sullivan (I think, there have been so many of them over the years) who said that America was a "thinly-veiled dictatorship" (2006) and that Guantanamo was "a gulag." Gulag as in Soviet forced labor camp.

For him, Bush was a Soviet style dictator.

Pardon me if I disregard whatever he says today. Or forever.

Hagar said...

When W was growing up, Texas was pretty much a one-party Democratic state, and the crowd he grew up with and later did business with, were pretty much the children of the people LBJ did business with. Most later became Republicans as the power structure shifted, but they were still comfortable dealing with and compromising with "liberal" Democrats.

For that matter, Richard Nixon was largely an accidental Republican. If his home district representative in 1946 had been a Republican, Nixon would have run as a Democrat.

As late as the 1920's, the "wild-eyed liberals" were the Republican Progressives and the "prairie populists."

Carol_Herman said...

Oh, "on any white-man."

Today's Reddit had up a story about how Blacks walked around with their pants lowered. And, the term adopted became "SAGGIN" pants.

Go ahead. Spell SAGGIN backwards.

It wasn't the underwear showing ... it was the racism.

Probably because black women knew how to wash men's underwear ... without turning the whites, pink.

While our media just keeps "saggin" along, I suppose?

Carol_Herman said...

Well, what good, exactly, befell the republicans when they saw Nixon elected in 1968? And, then re-elected in 1972?

The amazing thing about American politics is how the democraps can then WIN! But put in a stinker like Jimmy Carter!

If both parties weren't full of idiots, one party would be so far, ahead, we wouldn't be looking at all politicians as the DRECK they are!

Oh. And, for good measure. Obama wins in 2008. And, Pelosi rolls out her big guns. And, Obama "signs paper."

Then, in 2010, Pelosi saw that Obamacare was her Waterloo.

It's still with us, because republicans have no idea how to cancel anyting in Congress that puts earmarks into their districts.

Heck. It's like trying to eliminate whorehouses.

Or? Prohibition. How did that one work out for ya?

Skyler said...

Bush was always a radical socialist. He was just better than the alternatives offered by the democrat party, as is being proven again.

Steve M. Galbraith said...

Bush was always a radical socialist

A radical socialist?

As opposed to your run of the mill socialist?

Oy double vey.

Christopher said...

Will someone please tell me what the last major conservative (i.e. small govt.) position was that Sullivan supported? I mean this as a serious question.

I imagine it was prior to 2004 as that was roughly the time period he lost his crush on GWB (Sullivan having been a cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq and all that); since then all I can remember is him kissing Obama's ass.

Leland said...

I agree with you, Bruce. The problem is Bush did open the door for the high level of spending. Had he not freaked and pushed the original stimulus package (and McCain played it for political destruction), then the difference between Big Spending Democrats and Fiscal Responsible Republicans would be easy to argue. Instead, Obama and the 111th got the first year with excellent politcal coverage.

Steve M. Galbraith said...

Will someone please tell me what the last major conservative (i.e. small govt.) position was that Sullivan supported?

About three years ago, Sullivan stated the following:

"... [T]he current GOP is contemptible in all its permutations - from the base to the intelligentsia.... my political judgment, honestly held, proudly expressed, is that destroying this Republican party is essential if this country and the world are going to recover from our current morass."

(link: Sullivan re GOP).

I think most - if not all - of his views emanate from that central statement. If he does embrace a "conservative" argument, it's done to be used against the Republicans.

As to a conservative position: I would imagine he would claim that his support for entitlement reform would be one.

MaggotAtBroad&Wall said...

I saw "Meet the Press" on NBC and "This Week" on ABC.

Aside from CrackSkullBob's obvious sketching talent, he was a way of honing in on the exact comments that registered with me.

I literally laughed out loud when Norquist said [paraphrasing], "The Democrats have a secret agreement which they talk about on TV every once is a while".

When Doris Kearns Goodwin invented and used the term "shockdom", I thought how lucky for her that she's a lefty. Because if Sarah Palin had used the invented term "shockdom" in a roundtable discussion on national TV, half the Memeorandum page would be filled with links to self righteous lefty blogs endlessly ridiculing her.

And when Cokie Roberts said the Republican Party kust can't be a party of only white men, I wondered why somebody forgot to tell elected officials Nikki Haley, Bobby Jindal, Susanna Martinez, Brian Sandoval, Marco Rubio, Allen West, and Kay Bailey Hutchison that they are wrong to be Republicans since they are not white men.

Good stuff. I'm going to have to bookmark him.

Christopher said...

"As to a conservative position: I would imagine he would claim that his support for entitlement reform would be one."

Maybe I'm mistaken but didn't he support ObamaCare?

If he did indeed support that monstrosity then I don't see how he can claim to support entitlement reform with a straight face. Not even he can be that much of a hack.

Heart_Collector said...

SHOCKDOM... DAM NEAR KILLED EM.

sorepaw said...
This comment has been removed by the author.