Ellen Degeneres Under Fire For Friendship With George W. Bush

[Sid]

Neither was GWB, was he?
He hasn't done time. No court ruling.
He had bad advisors and staff, where he leaned heavily on, because he was a pretty weak president.
He most likely judged on false information just like the alliance of countries that fought with the US in the middle east.

 

[Han Held]

Bush was convicted In Absentia ...so yes, GWB was convicted.

He's responsible for the staff he picked, and for the decisions he made based on the advice he was given.

 

[Sid]

Yeah.... in Kuala Lumpur. Not very convincing.
International war crimes are for a special International court in The Hague NL.
Nobody started a procedure there.

 

[Han Held]

International war crimes are for a special International court in The Hague NL.

In a better world than this, he'd have stood trial.

An excellent article on the subject:

Dear Ellen DeGeneres: The Problem With Bush Is His War Crimes

Bush is not a “kind, sweet man.” There is nothing “beautiful” about him. He was a monster as governor of Texas and a monster as president.

theintercept.com

Yes, the 43rd president is a better husband and father, more mentally and emotionally stable, and less of a racist or Islamophobe, than the current president. But is that really now our benchmark for making friends or being “kind”? If you’re not Trump, all is forgiven?


This slow but steady rehabilitation of the former president, and the whitewashing of his manifest crimes, cannot be left unchallenged. Bush may owe Ellen six bucks for nachos. He owes the rest of us a prison sentence at The Hague.

 

[detrius]

Hey, at least he's not Hitler.

Right? Right?



[/snark]

 

[Brenda Archer]

 

[Soen Eber]

For a mafiosa, at least Trump hasn't killed any body.
















Well, personally.

 

[Aeon Jiminy]

In fairness, Bush - either of them - was absolutely presidential compared to the orange shitgibbon.

I just wanted to throw a reminder of what it was like during Baby Bush's rein of terror on the world. In my part of the woods, I had to drive home every day looking looking at terror alert banners across the beltway. People were afraid to say negative things in public, they'd whisper. Remember those yellow ribbons on everything? The media and the Democrats just parroted administration talking points. There was virtually no resistance as rights were being torched and moral lines were being crossed. It was 24/7 fear, fear, fear, and isolation. Just imagine what it would be like if you feared for your personal security every time you had something bad to say about Trump.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

I don't believe GWB is evil. Incompetent yes, evil, no. There were much more powerful forces behind the scenes that were running things - namely Dick Cheney, who is the reference photo when you look up the definition of evil.

Dick Cheney wasn't the half of the evil forces driving Bush. I think any discussion of how evil Bush was has to be put in context of how hysterical the public was right after 9/11/2001. The public at large in America was screaming incoherently for blood. A horrifying portion of the American public was willing to nuke the entire Middle East. The major Democrat figures at that time were swearing up and down they would have been at least as horrible as GWB if they were in office. When Kerry ran against Bush in 2004, he had a lot of trouble saying exactly how he would have been less horrible than Bush because it wasn't politically feasible to admit you wanted to pull out of the war. It was a very small percentage of the wisest and most compassionate people who were willing to speak out against what was basically fascist thinking right after 9/11/2001. This tiny minority didn't include Gore, Clinton, or a number of others who would rather you forget what they said back then. I remember an SNL skit mocking how democrats were just falling over themselves to lick Republican boots at the time.

This is why I mostly view GWB as the product of his time. Meanwhile the orange one was actually willing to go against the grain and all conventional wisdom to be a lot more evil than the public as a whole was being.

The really big thing that the Bush administration did that was even more evil than the American public at the time was that they manipulated intelligence to say that Iraq had WMD's. But I think it's actually possible GWB was just trusting Cheney on this one.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

I just wanted to throw a reminder of what it was like during Baby Bush's rein of terror on the world. In my part of the woods, I had to drive home every day looking looking at terror alert banners across the beltway. People were afraid to say negative things in public, they'd whisper. Remember those yellow ribbons on everything? The media and the Democrats just parroted administration talking points. There was virtually no resistance as rights were being torched and moral lines were being crossed. It was 24/7 fear, fear, fear, and isolation. Just imagine what it would be like if you feared for your personal security every time you had something bad to say about Trump.

So... You're actually saying that times are better now than under GWB?

Okay, you might be right. But only because Trump has only been in office just over two and a half years and hasn't managed to light the whole world on fire and destroy everything we worked hard for - yet. I'll check back with you if Trump gets elected again.

 

[Aeon Jiminy]

So... You're actually saying that times are better now than under GWB?

Okay, you might be right. But only because Trump has only been in office just over two and a half years and hasn't managed to light the whole world on fire and destroy everything we worked hard for - yet. I'll check back with you if Trump gets elected again.

I won't say better or worse, but Bush just took me to a lot of horrible firsts. I wasn't prepared for the soft coup of 2000, the Supreme Court, how fragile our Constitution was, how weak the Democrats were, how weak the media was, the lies. and the horror of knowing that any high administration officials would actually party and shop for shoes while one of our major cities was treated as "expendable" as it was collapsing and dying on our TV sets. I wasn't prepared that all of this and more would end up being normal. Maybe the first cut is the deepest.

 

[Shiloh Lyric]

I...never had a problem saying anything bad about, nor criticizing, GWB. Neither during nor after his Presidency.

Jesus. Where the fuck do some of you live that you had some sort of...what?...lurking so that you had to speak in whispers. Holy hell.

 

[Ashiri]

So... You're actually saying that times are better now than under GWB?

Okay, you might be right. But only because Trump has only been in office just over two and a half years and hasn't managed to light the whole world on fire and destroy everything we worked hard for - yet. I'll check back with you if Trump gets elected again.

Not better, different. Some different things for the RWNJs to be foaming at the mouth over but many of the issues they were rabid about during the Bush years, they are still rabid about.

(It's not like they'd know the difference between Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan or Syria)

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Dick Cheney wasn't the half of the evil forces driving Bush. I think any discussion of how evil Bush was has to be put in context of how hysterical the public was right after 9/11/2001. The public at large in America was screaming incoherently for blood. A horrifying portion of the American public was willing to nuke the entire Middle East.

There are two major defining factors on the average American: fear and having not much knowledge about the rest of the world. American diplomacy never was subtle, but with Trump in the office open arrogance also came back as an addition.

Nuking the source of were most of your oil back then came from as an opinion just indicates how little knowledge back then was in the public.

 

[Aeon Jiminy]

I...never had a problem saying anything bad about, nor criticizing, GWB. Neither during nor after his Presidency.

Jesus. Where the fuck do some of you live that you had some sort of...what?...lurking so that you had to speak in whispers. Holy hell.

Yes, my perspective could definitely be colored by location and a dependence on a very broad and loosely based government-related and media clientele. The general atmosphere is so different between the Bush and Trump administrations. Back in the Bush years, it felt like there was a guillotine of patriotism lurking in every corner. Nobody wanted to get "Dixie Chixed", even in their small circles. The Bush administration rolled into town in fleets of Mercedes with power and had their tentacles in everything. Yes, people really did whisper.

By contrast, you could throw darts at picture of Trump in Starbucks and nobody is going to do a damn thing. His brand has always been toxic and people freely mock him with no consequence. Nobody wants to be in a picture with him and the elite would be horrified to think that their prize Ivy League thoroughbreds were doing an internship in his White House and there might be some kind of permanent record of that. That's just the opinion and observation of an unimportant little piggy waiting in line for the trough.

 

[detrius]

I just wanted to throw a reminder of what it was like during Baby Bush's rein of terror on the world. In my part of the woods, I had to drive home every day looking looking at terror alert banners across the beltway. People were afraid to say negative things in public, they'd whisper. Remember those yellow ribbons on everything? The media and the Democrats just parroted administration talking points. There was virtually no resistance as rights were being torched and moral lines were being crossed. It was 24/7 fear, fear, fear, and isolation. Just imagine what it would be like if you feared for your personal security every time you had something bad to say about Trump.

Tell that to the families who got separated and thrown into concentration camps for trying to come to the USA.

 

[Soen Eber]

Tell that to the families who are still being separated and thrown into concentration camps for trying to come to the USA.

FIFY

 

[Aeon Jiminy]

Tell that to the families who got separated and thrown into concentration camps for trying to come to the USA.

Honestly, if I was in a conversation with immigrant families in detention, I'd probably be more interested in listening than talking. Don't you think they probably deserve to be heard more than used as convenient weapons for manipulation?

Maybe if we Americans had focused on what was really happening in front of our faces when Bush was in office, we wouldn't have built those detention centers and handed them to Trump in the first place. Maybe there would never have been a Trump. In a big circle back to the point- Ellen is doing us no favors by whitewashing Bush and embracing the blood and ugliness that's now a part of you and me and every American. No, calling it a friend and taking selfies with it isn't going to make us look any better or separate us from it as it rears its new face again and again.

 

[Cristiano]

I...never had a problem saying anything bad about, nor criticizing, GWB. Neither during nor after his Presidency.

The Dixie Chicks would like to have a word with you.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

The Dixie Chicks would like to have a word with you.

Right. Late in his presidency, it was very popular to shit all over Bush, but when they did it in 2003, Bush was still almost untouchable in the post 9/11 insanity that I was talking about.