Powerful Men
Media figures continues to excuse the crimes of George W. Bush
Former President George W. Bush is in the news again after making a number of comments that allow gullible Americans to rewrite reality about his time in office.
With appearances on Today, Jimmy Kimmel, and more to promote his newest book of paintings, Bush is taking full advantage of the opportunity to pretend his presidency didn't exactly set us up for the Trump strain of the Republican Party.
Your support makes these stories possible. If you’d like to make a monetary subscription to help fund my reporting, please become a paying subscriber and sign up for a monthly or annual donation.
Longtime readers will know I have written about this phenomenon with Bush for years. Not much has changed.
Bush’s remarks on immigration last week, that the GOP has become "nativist," dodge the reality of the Republican Party during his time as president, when the 43rd president actively and enthusiastically fanned the flames of xenophobia to garner public support for the war on Iraq and other priorities.
The former president’s revelation days later that, rather than vote for Donald Trump in the 2020 election, he cast his ballot for Condoleezza Rice as a write-in was more of the same, a meaningless attempt to thread the needle between rejecting Trump and still endorsing the ideological underpinnings of the 45th president's campaign. Bush made a similarly evasive move in 2016 by claiming he simply left his ballot blank.
The former president and his hanger ons may want to reset the historical record and to present the American right as "compassionate" and not of a kind to the white nativism and harsh economics of the Trump era. That this fantastical interpretation is largely allowed to pass by without challenge outside of alternative, left-leaning media is a problem.
When the former president blatantly tells the public that when given the choice between voting for Trump or voting for someone that could defeat him, he voted for a write-in, he’s being clear about where he really stands. Will the political media finally listen?
In other news, feast your eyes on some of the wildest shit from the 00s, a Vh1 special on The Fabulous Life of Billion Dollar Wall Street Ballers featuring…. uh…. Jeffrey Epstein.
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!