The speechwriter's revenge

A new exposé of George Bush's White House raises howls and cheers

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Well, judging from the comments (I've real every one on this article) I'd say The Economist's readers are decidedly liberal, or at least, "anti-Bush."
There are reasonable points of view with a conservative perspective y'all might want to consider:


George Bush was by any measure a bad president. The man was an arrogant failure in so many ways it isn't even funny. But he was a great tool of evangelicals who want nothing whatsoever to do with letting individuials live their lives as they see fit.

As awful as the far right is, the Democrats are going to have to start demonstrating that they care about the American people's desires, and that they are truly about change. Up to now Obama's talk of change has been just that: talk.

Q. Compson

"Come election time next November, if Afghanistan has turned into a fiasco...Americans will blame the people in power."

Gee...too bad they didn't do this in 2004, when Iraq was a fiasco. Reelecting Bush did irreparable damage to the country's prestige and reputation.

"As for the Democrats, they need to realise that no matter how many Bush-baiting books are sold in Washington, DC, the rest of the country is moving on."

Well, apparently the Economist isn't moving on; nor the editor of that socially conservative periodical who is excited about the distance the book puts between Bush and 'true conservatives.'


caribis wrote: "Speaking of delusions, the surge was coincidental with the decrease of violence in Iraq not the cause of it. Paying off the Sunni leaders (the Anbar Awakening) and technical advances in targeting and eliminating the hardcore insurgents caused the falloff of violence in Iraq."


We already know the so-called surge in Iraq was a ruse to soothe Rapture-ready American conservatives more atuned to war. It was nothing more than political cover for planeloads of cash the Bush administration dropped off on shrink-wrapped pallets... along dusty, Baghdad back roads... where tribal warlords picked it up in the back of rusty, well-armed Datsun pickup trucks.

Local elders used US taxpayer cash to employ their young, hungry militiamen to simply chill, to relax in the form of the Anbar Awakening.

The surge was cover for socialized peace. We know that.


Now... in Afghanistan...


The Obama administration's going to pay the Taliban to stop fighting. They're going to employ the Bush administration's socialized, Anbar-peace process, and disguise it as a military build-up to subdue an enemy... just so America's Tribulation-zealous Apocalypse-mongers "feel heard".

But Obama's rhetoric on the subject has become muddled. When the argument was Cut-n-Run™ vs. the Surge®, (and NOT about secretly paying off Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province), those highly argumentative memes were at least well-formed, group-tested, political propaganda brands that let people latch onto something.

Obama's more public dithering over what not to do, instead of what to do, will drive people into Carter-like uncertainty.

Americans aren't educated for debate. There is a supreme being who arbitrates, and CEO's are falsely imbued with omnipotent powers by lay people, even though executives are actually beholden to a board of directors who prefer to work in secrecy.


VK1961 wrote: "Agree with The Prof, and 'Here, here!' for a new, moderate center-right party, if the GOP goes the way it is currently going."

I think that would be called the Democrats, who have done little to actually deliver a leftist hegemony to America.

While the largest caucus in the party is nominally progressive, some of their most famous names in Congress, Lynn Woolsey, Pete Stark , Sheila Jackson-Lee, Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sander, John Conyers, Barney Frank, Robert Wexler , Jesse Jackson Jr., Barbara Lee, John Lewis, Charles Rangel, Henry Waxman, Maxine Waters, and over 60 other progressives have routinely failed to deliver on the promise of Utopian splendor.

Nothing remotely as efficient as public healthcare stands much of a chance, there, even in a country sick to death of conservative Republicans. It's the results that matter, and there's nothing particularly center-left about what the Democratic Party has delivered, even when they are effectively unopposed.


"As for the Democrats, they need to realise... if unemployment is still high, or Afghanistan has turned into a fiasco, or if health-care reform unravels, or if there is another terrorist attack, Americans will blame the people in power, not the retired guy in Crawford."

Not entirely true.

Critical thinkers can reasonably conclude that these problems were either caused or utterly mishandled by the retired guy in Crawford. After all, FDR was reelected before having solved historical, apocalyptic problems he inherited from his Republican predecessor. The voters remembered how they got where they were, even though not all of their problems had been solved.

That having been said, modern Americans aren't as famous for critical thinking, more so for being susceptible to rhetorical flourishes and snarky repartee, so it definitely remains to be seen if some of the most famous and consequential history the writer ignores will repeat itself today.


When I was younger, I read Burke's essay on the French Revolution and could understand Conservative's skepticism and empathized with it. Now, however, that skepticism has turned into self-righteous certitude; this is the same problem that exists on the far left. Although, I am of the opinion that a Progressive party would do the best because it could combine the best elements of both such as the Republicans desire to lower the barriers to entry and the overall cost of doing business along with the Democrats desire to provide social safety nets which allow people to take risks.



Reading your quotes about President Bush, however, has slightly changed my opinion of him. His observation on the Palin pick, while not requiring much in the way of analytic thought, does show far more intelligence in the President than I ever thought he possessed.


Agree with The Prof, and "Here, here!" for a new, moderate center-right party, if the GOP goes the way it is currently going.

Mr. Latimer's only saving grace is that, to my knowledge at least, he has not gone into politics as a candidate himself. In other words, he has not mutated into something horrid as another former speech-writer did, would-be Ayatollah Patrick Buchanandinabad.


It boggles the mind that, in a country like the US, Lexington cannot find anything more interesting to write about than this Latimer book.

No wonder The Economist is free online. Who would pay to read a piece about such an insignificant topic?


Well written, nice job Lexington. Regardless of what you think of President Bush, this is a first order betrayal. This book says more about Mr. Latimer's character than Mr. Bush.

As for the broader points, it is true that the DNC needs to offer more plans than we're not those guys rhetoric. I am more worried about making sure we have a credible opposition party and on that note, the GOP is failing miserably.

Anyone who thinks Reagan would be elected in 2010 is delusional. It is easy to say government is the problem when your employer provides what government does in most other developed countries. In 2010, they don't and as a result the average American faces unprecedented economic uncertainty. The best way forward is to accept that the government is going to have to provide some form of social safety net and make sure it isn't gold plated with mink trim. If the GOP won't do that, then it is time to start a new center-right party in the United States.


The point about my democratic party is well made. It makes me cringe when the congress leaders pelosi, reid and to a much lesser extent Dave Obey (who is a nice guy but too Washington) when we have exceptional technocrat democrats like Mark Warner (handsome, boring and competent)



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