George Bush fails to provide a catharsis for Frank Rich:
WE like our failed presidents to be Shakespearean, or at least large enough to inspire Oscar-worthy performances from magnificent tragedians like Frank Langella. So here, too, George W. Bush has let us down. Even the banality of evil is too grandiose a concept for 43. He is not a memorable villain so much as a sometimes affable second banana whom Josh Brolin and Will Ferrell can nail without breaking a sweat. He’s the reckless Yalie Tom Buchanan, not Gatsby. He is smaller than life.
Gosh, how can he go on without Rosebud the closure? At least he gets to beat off on the pages of the NYT.
Once again he is shifting the blame. This presidency was not about Him. Bush failed because in the end it was all about him.
Silly man! This presidency was all about . . . Frank Rich.
Comment by thor on 1/4 @ 9:30 am #
As someone who can assess Bush sans the emotional outbursts of the likes not seen since a former U-of-Michigan student shat into the mouth of Bucky the Ohio State Buckeye mascot, I would say Mr. Rich’s piece is, indeed, a bit of partisan harping even while recognizing Pres. Bush’s unquestioned performance failings.
Comment by Peg C. on 1/4 @ 9:51 am #
Who even reads Frank Rich?
Comment by SmokeVanThorn on 1/4 @ 9:57 am #
So that’s what people use the Times for.
Comment by Christopher Taylor on 1/4 @ 10:07 am #
In the end all those hysterical cries and that gnashing of teeth about the evil President Bush tyranny and destruction of America rings rather false. The man is affable and agreeable, he avoids being the monster that the left kept saying he was simply by being himself. And in the coming years I suspect a lot of people are going to miss the last eight years very, very much.
Too many people forgot how media-driven and juvenile the Clinton administration was and what a breath of fresh air and confidence it was to have adults in the White House again. They will remember soon enough.
Comment by Andrew on 1/4 @ 10:43 am #
Still more Daddy-Hate from the Times. LOL.
Bush is just better than them, warts and all.
Comment by MarkD on 1/4 @ 11:53 am #
The Times is still publishing? What else did they sell? Is there anything left?
I’m sure Frank Rich’s soul is on the block. I doubt there are any bidders.
Comment by Sticky B on 1/4 @ 11:58 am #
Mr. Rich is scheduled to go through puberty in the fall of 2012. I for one, hope it goes well for him.
Comment by McGehee on 1/4 @ 12:17 pm #
Waitwaitwait! There’s still time for Chimpy McBushhitlerburton to declare martial law and prevent the orderly transfer of power once and for all to Teh O!ne. You’ll see!
</moonbat>
Comment by Mikey NTH on 1/4 @ 12:22 pm #
For a man accused of acting as if his office was all about him, Mr. Bush has acted less like Gov. Blagojevich than like him. In that vein, he is more like HST than FDR.
Comment by commander0 on 1/4 @ 3:17 pm #
The NY Times is now the incredible shrinking newspaper. I picked up the paper this morning and was astonished at its resemblance to an anorexic fashion model. It used to be you could just see through their bias. Now you can see through the paper itself. Do you suppose Pinch knows why? I don’t.
Comment by Kevin B on 1/4 @ 5:41 pm #
‘S’OK Frank, you got Othello to talk about now.
Comment by Techie on 1/5 @ 12:40 pm #
Wasn’t Othello a Moor? RACISTS!!!!!!!!!
I love it [Hey remember all that gnashing of teeth that GWB and FEMA were going to CANCEL ELECTIONS, TORTURE YOUR FAMILY, JAIL THE OPPOSITION, CRUSH DISSENT, and the like? Boy, do we look silly.....?]
Comment by Big Dan on 1/6 @ 5:52 am #
Yeah, W should be more like that pleasant O! fella, who just happens to sit for all those heroic photo shoots and doesn’t stop his minions from embarrassing outbursts about their leg-thrills.
It’s ALL about the O!.
Comment by datadave on 1/7 @ 8:14 am #
“Too many people forgot how media-driven and juvenile the Clinton administration was and what a breath of fresh air and confidence it was to have adults in the White House again. They will remember soon enough.”
?
wow, just wow. You made my day proving that some Americans are the stupidest people ever. Bush, who lived off his dad’s creds, who could only make a profit off stealing people’s homes to build a sports stadium at the public’s expense, who cut taxes during a ‘war’? sinking the economy as a result….yeah, tks for proving what idiots Republicans are and always will be.
..”that GWB and FEMA were going to CANCEL ELECTIONS, TORTURE YOUR FAMILY, JAIL THE OPPOSITION, CRUSH DISSENT, and the like? Boy, do we look silly”
what Bush did to middle class incomes in America is far worse than the above: we are entering a Chubais-era America. 20 million will die early deaths as a result..just like in Russia mid’90s. Obama can only mitigate the damage Bush and the Republcans have done (with help from DLC democrats like ah Larry Summers and Bob Rubin). At least Clinton taxed higher incomes and increased the economy and investment..while Bush cut taxes for speculators and the resulting income gains were only due to ’speculation’. Now the bill is being paid by lower middle class people while the likes of Phil Gramm and Hank Paulson are putting their profits in Swiss Banks.
yeah, thank you. Republicans for your (im)mature financial deregulation and (faith in) lack of transparency in markets.
Comment by B Moe on 1/7 @ 8:19 am #
At least Clinton taxed higher incomes and increased the economy and investment..while Bush cut taxes for speculators and the resulting income gains were only due to ’speculation’.
That is some highly refined stupid, right there.
Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 1/7 @ 8:24 am #
I’ve got the ‘hammer turned on.
Is dipshitdave the tax cheat jabbering away again?
Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 1/7 @ 8:25 am #
Yep, he is.
Bye, dave.
Comment by thor on 1/7 @ 8:40 am #
Anatoly Chubias, ouch! That’s gonna hurt for awhile. Salient, as usual, when it comes to Russian analogies is Super Dave.
Comment by charles austin on 1/7 @ 11:50 am #
Bush failed because in the end it was all about him.
Yowza, did Frank Rich sleep through the Clinton administration?
Pingback by Battered Op-Ed Syndrome, aka Moonbattery [Dan Collins] on 1/22 @ 7:45 am #
[...] Frank Rich, the noted New York Times political observer, said in his column that “after eight years of battering by Bush, the nation has been rendered half-catatonic” therefore we the people have virtually given up complaining. But some of those people emerging from their “catatonic” condition are asking “Where is the rage, the public outcry?” – will the Bush administration’s alleged wrongs be investigated and will the perpetrators be punished? A Times editorial said, “You cannot fix something before you know exactly how it was broken.” [...]