Is it just me, or does anyone else find it passing strange that the name of the most recent Republican occupant of the Oval Office is never mentioned by the members of his own party, not even in whispers? Republicans reach back to Ronald Reagan and even as far back as Abraham Lincoln, but George W Bush has been effectively airbrushed out of Republican history. W has not been seen nor heard from during the campaign, nor at the convention. Which Republican candidate for public office trumpets an endorsement from George W Bush? He's the invisible man. Come to think of it, the Republicans are silent about W's father, George H W Bush as well. It's as though the two presidencies never happened. And that's not to speak of Richard Nixon, whose presidency never happened, either.
Democrats have not forgotten W and often speak of the wars, the deficit, the tax cuts for the rich, and the economy in deep recession, on the brink of a depression, that he bequeathed to the country and to the president who came after. How ironic that Republicans blame Obama for the last 12 years with nary a mention of George W Bush. As Democrats say, the election of Romney would take us back to W's policies, but "on steroids".
Nope, it's not just you ... although I am ever so delighted that I may never again have to listen to W mis-pronounce nuclear (new-klee-er, for the phonetically inclined) ... by the end of his term his voice made it a mortal misery just to listen to the news.
ReplyDeleteMarthe, Bush offered multiple challenges to citizens who expected simple literacy of their president, as we waited for the next cringe-worthy garbling of words or mispronunciation.
DeleteI agree with you Mimi, but I also do with Marthe!!!
ReplyDeleteCiss B, I agree with both of you. All together now...
DeleteI too noticed that Bush was not mentioned once by either candidate in the debates, not even in the perhaps less accusatory form of the phrase "the Bush Administration." Had I been Obama, I would have certainly said at several relevants points, "There's no wonder the country's still in difficulty, Bush left me a big freaking mountain of elephant dung to clean up," or something even more to the point.
ReplyDeleteBut then curiously, Romney had not a single bright example of Republican goodness to point to in the Bush years, either. Funny how that is.
Right on, Russ!
DeleteI think Obama does not want to be seen as banging away at his predecessor by name. He works the policy failures of the Bush administration into the conversation in indirect ways.
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