New York Times political reporter Michael Barbaro made print with his gushy mini-profile of Ivy Ziedrich, the Young Democrat turned instant left-wing heroine for her testy exchange with Jeb Bush over ISIS and his brother's presidential legacy: "Student Who Stood Up To Debate ISIS With Bush."
George W. Bush
Blogger Jonathan Chait: Thanks to Reagan’s Moderation and Bush’s Unpopularity, GOP Has No ‘Usable Past’
By Tom Johnson | May 14, 2015 | 2:26 PM EDT There’s been plenty of mockery of the three actual or potential Republican presidential candidates who named Ronald Reagan as the greatest living president, but New York magazine's Chait feels their pain, sort of.
Chait observed in a Wednesday post that GOPers are in a bind when choosing the best living POTUS given that 1) for obvious reasons, they wouldn’t pick Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton; 2) George H. W. Bush “betrayed Reaganism”; and 3) George W. Bush suffered a “second-term collapse into deep unpopularity” despite “govern[ing] in a more consistently conservative fashion than Reagan had.”
By Clay Waters | March 9, 2015 | 10:34 PM EDT
After former President George W. Bush failed to make the cut in the New York Times' photo collection of the march commemorating Selma, the Times on Monday showed its idea of political balance. It led the paper with yet another hammering of an incompetent, ultraconservative Republican Congress, while another front-page report critical of Hillary Clinton was hidden under a mild headline and peppered with anti-GOP caveats.
Ted Kennedy Institute Gushed Over By NYT, But Bush Library a 'Disturbing' Threat to 'Academic Freedom'
By Clay Waters | February 9, 2015 | 10:06 PM EST Ted Kennedy, the late liberal "Lion of the Senate" (as he's invariably called) had his hugely exaggerated bipartisan reputation polished to a gleam in a story in the New York Times Arts section by Robin Pogrebin, "In the Mold of a Senator Who Bartered -- Edward M. Kennedy Institute Aims to Teach Collaboration." Yet the George W. Bush Presidential Library was considered by the Times "disturbing" and a possible threat to academic freedom.
By Tim Graham | December 26, 2014 | 9:09 AM EST
At Bloomberg View, former Obama aide Cass Sunstein – still connected by marriage to Obama through his wife, U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power – praised “George W. Bush’s Graceful Silence.” Democrats often appreciate the gentility of ex-presidents named Bush....even if they never quite criticize the Clintons and Carters who never stay silent during Republican presidencies.
Sunstein did not appreciate former Obama cabinet members blabbing against Obama in their memoirs.
By Tom Johnson | June 14, 2014 | 4:01 PM EDT
The term “permanent revolution” is usually associated with Marxism, but American Prospect blogger Paul Waldman believes that these days, it’s movement conservatives who are talkin’ about a permanent revolution, and that their ideal Republican pol is an “agent of chaos and destruction, or at least pretend[s] that's who he is.”
In a Thursday post, Waldman quoted RealClearPolitics analyst Sean Trende’s explanation, in the wake of Eric Cantor’s loss, for why, in Trende’s words, “the Republican base is furious with the Republican establishment, especially over the Bush years.” Waldman’s reaction:
By Tim Graham | April 7, 2014 | 4:38 PM EDT
The new art exhibit of paintings by George W. Bush has drawn some positive ex-president publicity from the national media (like NBC letting his daughter Jenna interview him). But someone on the Left had to sound like the Guardian (U.K.), whose art critic Jonathan Jones called it “the art of Forrest Gump.” Once again, the Harvard MBA is mentally challenged.
“That gentle, civilised art can wipe away a surprising quantity of blood,” Jones wrote, before disparaging America in general:
By Kyle Drennen | January 28, 2014 | 3:07 PM EST
In a shocking declaration on her 1 p.m. ET hour MSNBC show Tuesday, host Andrea Mitchell asserted that one of America's fiercest enemies was actually a friend to the U.S. before George W. Bush came along: "Up until that moment, Iran was cooperating with the United States on the border of Afghanistan, it was post-9/11, Iran was more or less an American ally. By being included in the Axis of Evil, it turned the Iranian government in a completely different direction." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
The topic came up when The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza told Mitchell that the last "memorable and impactful" State of the Union address was President Bush's 2002 speech labeling Iraq, Iran, and North Korea to be an "Axis of Evil." Mitchell interrupted: "No, let me challenge you on that....Colin Powell and the State Department did not focus enough on those words and get them taken out of the State of the Union."
By Kyle Drennen | January 7, 2014 | 12:01 PM EST
Introducing a report on Monday's NBC Nightly News about Al-Qaeda forces seizing control of the Iraqi city of Fallujah, anchor Brian Williams went out of his way to blame the President George W. Bush for the deteriorating security situation: "U.S. fighting forces are gone from Iraq. But as so many predicted when President Bush chose to go to war there after 9/11, the fighting has started up again." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
However, in the report that followed, correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin featured a sound bite of President Obama – not President Bush – celebrating the "historic moment" of an abrupt U.S. troop withdrawal from the country after failing to negotiate a status of forces agreement with the Iraqi government. Mohyeldin noted: "Some warned the U.S. withdrawal left a security vacuum."
By Kyle Drennen | November 20, 2013 | 10:45 AM EST
Appearing on Tuesday's Tonight Show, former President George W. Bush got a laugh from the audience with this one-liner: "We've always had such great relations with NBC." Host Jay Leno added to the joke by taking his own shot at the network: "I'm glad one of us has." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
The brief exchange was prompted by Leno asking the former commander-in-chief and former First Lady Laura Bush about their daughter, Jenna Bush-Hager, being a correspondent for the Today show: "And Jenna is on the Today show...Is that fun?" Laura Bush replied: "It's fun. It's fun for us. We love to watch her."
Comparing NYT Positions on Obama's False 'You Can Keep Your Plan-Doctor-Provider' Guarantee to Bush and WMDs
By Tom Blumer | November 14, 2013 | 4:38 PM EST A commenter at my post yesterday ("TomsonaNonGrata") about how a pair of New York Times reporters characterized President Barack Obama's false guarantee to Americans that "If you like your plan-doctor-provider, you can keep your plan-doctor-provider" as an "incorrect promise" — because they couldn't work up the nerve to call it a lie — noted that "All these people (in the press) that were so quick to call Bush a liar about WMD, when he was basing his decision on the intelligence available at the time, now can't bring themselves to call Obama a liar, when he specifically knew policies could/would be cancelled, and kept saying otherwise."
Point well-taken, especially given what the intrepid tweet trackers at Twitchy relayed from Washington Examiner columnist Charlie Spiering. Spiering fouund a Times editorial from 2008 which commented on the George W. Bush and weapons of mass destruction:
Yahoo's Shapiro Sings Praises of 'Obama's History-Defying Decision to Seek Congressional Approval on Syria'
By Tom Blumer | September 2, 2013 | 6:45 PM EDT Walter Shapiro's column at Yahoo yesterday might as well be called, "My Hero -- xoxo."
Its actual headline is, "Obama's history-defying decision to seek Congressional approval on Syria." As Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds noted a short time ago: "You can read this entire article about Obama going to Congress over Syria without seeing any mention that Bush went to Congress over Iraq and Afghanistan." After the jump, readers will get as much as (or maybe more than) they can stand, complete with the "There were no WMDs in Iraq" lie (bolds are mine):