Shmuel Rosner is always good for some amusement (unintended of course). And reader Eran points to today’s column as a special laugher about George Bush’s Half Done (more accurately “half-baked”) presidency. The worshipful prose is unbelievable considering how universally condemned the Bush presidency has become (most polls show him at or near his lowest popularity ratings ever)–at least in this country. There is one country, Rosner notes, where Bush’s popularity remains high…You guessed it:
If he thinks that a majority of Israelis appreciate…Bush himself – he apparently is correct. According to a Gallup poll conducted last summer, 66 percent of Israelis are satisfied with the U.S. leadership – higher than any Western state and most non-Western states.
I know most ex-presidents are consumed with their presidential libraries, securing endorsement deals, making high-paid speeches, creating a legacy. But Bush shouldn’t give up on being president merely because his eight years are over. There’s a place for him in Israel’s heart–and perhaps in its presidency. One of its more recent presidents was caught with his pants down and unceremoniously sacked. Its current president, Shimon Peres, is an old geezer whose time has long past. Bush could hardly be less relevant than Peres as president–or could he?
Yes, he might have to take Israeli citizenship. But given the support he receives from Christian Zionists and his love for Jesus who walked this land, that might not be a stretch.
Clearly, Bush isn’t going to get that Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement he predicted by year’s end. What better way to keep the peace fires burning than by taking a shot at being Israel’s president? He shouldn’t have any problem getting elected. Israelis know he was the most obsequious U.S. president on record to Israel’s interests. He’d be a shoe-in if he wanted to work the same magic he’s done here on Israel.
Luckily for Israel, its presidency is largely ceremonial. If Bush had any real power as Israel’s president think of the disasters he could wreak.
Among the truly memorable puffery in Rosner’s piece is a favorable comparison of Bush to Lincoln, Truman and Washington:
Over the past year, Bush read a few books about the first president of the United States, George Washington. If he is still being written about today – over 200 years later – then perhaps Bush will also be written about, even argued over, hundreds of years down the road.
Yeah, they’ll argue whether he was the worst president on record or the second worst. Dream on, Shmulik–and he does:
Bush certainly merits criticism in a number of areas, but there’s one thing nobody can take away from him: He comes to work every morning to work, to try to change the world, for the good.
There are probably fourteen people left in the world who believe, along with Rosner here, that George Bush has changed the world for the good. The former isn’t merely a voice in the wilderness. I’d say he’s practically a lone voice in the cosmos. But it’s good that George will have someone with whom he can commune once he retires to the ranch, where he’ll break out the ol’ electric saw to trim brush on the back 40. In fact, George may be looking for a personal assistant or PR flack for his post-presidency gig. Rosner should apply.
Rosner isn’t quite done with his hagiography:
At the end of his term he will leave behind a job left uncompleted. The observer scrutinizing his actions will have to choose between two reasons: Either the policy was wrongheaded to begin with, or Bush’s diagnosis was correct but eight years was simply not enough time to prove it.
How could any reasonable person not see that the main problem with the Bush presidency was that he wasn’t given enough time to prove himself and his policies? Just think how much better off we Americans would be if we could give him another four years!
Rosner closes his elegy with this lofty thought:
And so it is that Bush comes to his second and final visit to Israel as president with a sense of serenity about what he has done and about what he will not manage to do…
If George Bush is serene it is the serenity of the obtuse. I’m reminded of the title of that classic American novel, A Confederacy of Dunces. Between Rosner and Bush there appears to be a confederacy of serene dunces.
At the end of his term he will leave behind a job left uncompleted.
Rosner is right Bush did not complete the” Job”. USA still has after his terms some kind of economy left, shaky and suffering, but still. Some nations still follow US orders even most countries have learned that is more “profitable” to make business with Chinese and forget Bush’s crusades.
Seriously speaking what are Bush’s terms achievements which could be seen as good for the world and Americans? 911 happened on his watch, New Orleans’ miserable rebuilding, total collapse of USA’s international reputation, two totally failed wars, Abu Grahib and Guantanamo Bay, the fastest speed of shrinking in civil rights in USA ever seen etc. The list of failures and small and big defeats is endless. If somebody can write a whole book of Bush’s achievements after ten, twenty years, that is an real achievement (even in the field of propaganda writing). It would be a much easier task to write a series of books of Bush’s regimes failures. Without doubt George Walker Bush Iraqius will continue to “live” in history as do Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus and Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (Caligula).
I’m not the biggest fan of Israel, but whatever its sins it doesn’t deserve a Bush presidency.
May I remind you that Truman didn’t run in 1952 because he would have been squashed. And they called Lincoln a gorilla. Try to step back from your hatred of Bush for a second and admit that these things need a little historical perspective.
“historical perspective” begins with present-day evaluations. There’s no doubt in my mind that GW Bush will replace Warren G. Harding as the worst US president of the 19th and 20th centuries, in the considered judgements of most historians, this year, next year, and in the year 2508!
Zhu Bajie, PhD, History
@Bill Pearlman: Yes they do. And in historical retrospective Bush’s presidency will look far worse than it does now. In 20 yrs time, so many Americans alive in 2000 & 2004 will claim they voted for Gore & Kerry that it’ll be a wonder that Bush received any votes at all.
This diseased, amoral little man, Bush, and his fascistic administration have succeeded in reducing what was once a work in progress, our nation, to a wretched state, one that very likely represents is experiencing the greatest threat to its very being since the Civil War. We have become an internationally violent, terrorist nation, a militaristic power that makes that of Ghengis Khan look benign. In pursuit of our self-proclaimed righteous significance, we have smashed our way into the 21st century with that 19th-century justification titled Manifest Destiny, as proclaimed by such as Bush’s handler-cronies and their follower-enablers such as those shits we euphemistically honor with the term “Neocon”. My God, we are in the process of returning our laws to a state preceding the 13th-century Magna Carta. Educated movers and shakers of our society debate with nary a facial twitch whether waterboarding really constitutes torture or not and whether the Geneva Convention is of any concern to us. Our infrastructure is collapsing, our expenditures (a basic expression of what a nation truly is) are essentially pro-greed and pro-death, we treat labor (people) as an expendable part of a bottom-line equation; we use God, or convenient expressions of the concept, along with various theological permutations, to justify whatever might satisfy the all-greedy among us, whether greedy for money or bringing about the end of times in a blaze of glory. Is it any wonder, then, that Obama’s statement of hope has resonated among many of us? And Israel’s support for the vileness named Bush speaks volumes about what that stout little democracy has become. Matthew Arnold said it sweetly a good many years ago: “And we are here as on a darkling plain/Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,/Where ignorant armies clash by night.”
Norm, take a valium man. The Berlin Wall fell, even though they did deserve it, plus a lot more. Che was a murderer, and Hamas is not the good guy here. We are and Israel is. It really is that simple.
@Bill Pearlman: You mean “simplistic” don’t you?
Bush and Israel deserve each other. I wish he would make Aliyah amd spare us the pain of another 8 months of his diabolical administration.
Right on, Bill. Nice to know you’re a good German. I asked you once before, I believe, “Do you wear a flag in your lapel?” I hope to hell you do. Patriotism’s important stuff, you know. Forget the Valium – it’s aged Scotch for me all the way, neat!
Missed my point big guy. The Berlin wall was them getting off easy. What they deserved was multiple mushroom clouds. BTW, how is this our greatest threat since the civil war. Please enlighten me. or were you referring to Oct 1917.
Bill: Now you’re advocating nuclear war against the Russians and their allies??? Come now, Bill. Are you a deliberate plant trying to make right-wingers look like raving lunatics??
Take him! How about tomorrow!
Remember to remove the tar and feathers before use.