George H.W. Bush, 41st president of the United States, dies at 94

[Drala]

7 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

While Bush 41 was probably a better person than the monster who now squats in the White House, George H.W. Bush was not a nice or even a good man.

At the risk of tempting you to speak ill of the dead, I am curious about what lead you to say this.  HW invaded Iraq, a morally unjust war, imo, but there is a realpolitik argument that the first Iraq war was in the strategic interests of the US global empire. He mucked about in the dirt of racism with the Willie Horton thing during his campaign against Dukakis. These are (imo) ordinary political sins.  Anyone who aspires to the level of power inherent in the US presidency sells their soul to the devil to some degree, so I put that down as a handicap on the scorecard.  Yes, he would set aside principles for sake of personal political gain.  HW is not a saint, but I don't know that I could say he was not nice or good.   Not including the orange FF and relative to all other presidents, HW seems to have been a fairly decent man.  Maybe I'm missing something?

 

[47of74]

[fraurosena]

 

[Palimpsest]

1 hour ago, Drala said:

At the risk of tempting you to speak ill of the dead, I am curious about what lead you to say this.

I'll speak ill of the dead.  He may have been an adorable family man but I could never stand him as a politician.  And he wasn't a very good president either.  He just looks better than the orange menace.  But then almost anyone would.  Even the Shrub, and I dislike him even more than his dad.

With HW it is primarily fucked up foreign policy and the immoral wars.  When your popularity ratings are dropping starting wars makes you popular again in the US.  Not with me.   I don't give much of a shit about the supposed "strategic interests of the US global empire."  I give many shits about supporting corrupt dictatorships and illegal invasions by the US.

So HW:

• As director of the CIA:  Active supporter of Operation Condor.  Bad stuff.  Very bad stuff.
• As VP to Reagan:  Up to his eyeballs in Iran-Contra.  He should have been criminally prosecuted for that.  And he didn't give a flying fuck about the facts about Iran Air Flight 655 being shot down.  'Cos Amurica.
• Willie Horton has been covered.  It was the beginning of really filthy election politics.  HW was a dirty fighter.
• As President:  He lacked the "Vision Thing" both in domestic and foreign policy.  He was reactive domestically and wrongly proactive in foreign policy.  He made big mistakes. The illegal invasion of Panama.  And, as you say, many things about the Gulf War were immoral.

So it has been a hagiographic week.  The man was certainly no saint.  He went out of his way to support corrupt dictators and waged war without considering the consequences.

[smittykins]

16 hours ago, apple1 said:

I was raised Baptist. We did not recite the Apostles' Creed. We did, however, believe the same basic theology.

As a teen/young adult, I attended a fundie-light church, and we didn't even recite the Lord's Prayer, much less the Apostles' Creed.  I always wondered about that, but never remembered to ask.

And, like @47of74, I can say the Nicene Creed from memory. but need to read the Apostles' Creed from the prayer book(also Episcopalian).

[onekidanddone]

9 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

 

We know what Dick does to his friends (shoots them in the face) I shudder to think what he does with an enemy 

[nausicaa]

11 hours ago, Maggie Mae said:

Or GW? I keep seeing a headline (and a graphic on fox news, at the gym, not by choice) about how HW was the last WASP president. Setting aside the fact that being a WASP might not be desirable in 2018, wouldn't his son also fall into that category? And, unfortunately, Trump? I mean, Trump is trash, but hes still a white "protestant" male. 

Since GW became a born again Christian, I suppose he loses his WASP status, since the "Protestant" part of WASP typically means a member of an old mainline denomination. He also took on a Texas twang when running for president to distance himself from his New England roots.

And good point on Trump. I never think of him as a WASP, because for all their flaws, WASPs aren't exactly known for their emotional outbursts or public rug shits (don't want the servants to gossip, darling). And culturally, he is not WASP-y at all. All that gold and showiness is very "nouveau riche" and considered deeply distasteful.

But yeah, I suppose he is. Though, he still doesn't have the same WASP pedigree as the Bushes. Barbara Bush's family is hella old Mayflower money.

[mamallama]

Bush also said some pretty dispicable things about gay people although he supposedly changed that position in recent years.

[Alisamer]

48 minutes ago, nausicaa said:

And good point on Trump. I never think of him as a WASP, because for all their flaws, WASPs aren't exactly known for their emotional outbursts or public rug shits (don't want the servants to gossip, darling). And culturally, he is not WASP-y at all. All that gold and showiness is very "nouveau riche" and considered deeply distasteful.

But yeah, I suppose he is. Though, he still doesn't have the same WASP pedigree as the Bushes. Barbara Bush's family is hella old Mayflower money.

Trump's version of rich is what old southern ladies call "tacky". One of my clients is an older lady, extremely wealthy, from an "old money" family. She is gracious, kind, empathetic, and does not call any attention to her wealth. She dresses well, but casually and appropriate for the situation. Her jewelry is real and high quality, but is tasteful and understated. Most of my wealthiest customers are like her. 

The Trumps are more like the Loomis Fargo Hillbilly Heist people, who moved directly from a single-wide trailer into a country club mansion across from the town mayor, but furnished it with velvet Elvis paintings and leopard print carpet and wondered why people were suspicious of their sudden extravagant displays of wealth.

[hoipolloi]

3 hours ago, Drala said:

Maybe I'm missing something?

Yes - Iran-Contras. Bush 41 was deeply entwined in that illegal, deadly & highly destructive affair. The most visible legacies of that debacle, for Americans anyway, are the thousands of desperate people from Central America seeking to escape their countries -- which Bush 41 helped destabilize & ruin. There's a lot of stuff at that link and none of it exonerates Bush 41 but in fact makes it clear he was a fucking criminal along with those he pardoned.

IMO the "Willie Horton thing" was worse than politics as usual. It gave rise directly to what we see today with the red-hatted MAGAts and in-your-face racism & nationalism.

Bush 41 was cruelly dismissive of AIDS and its victims to the point that he arguably set back research & medical care for years. 

In short, he was NOT a nice person and was arguably a very bad man. 

 

 

[Drala]

1 hour ago, Palimpsest said:

I'll speak ill of the dead.  He may have been an adorable family man but I could never stand him as a politician.  And he wasn't a very good president either.  He just looks better than the orange menace.  But then almost anyone would.  Even the Shrub, and I dislike him even more than his dad.

With HW it is primarily fucked up foreign policy and the immoral wars.  When your popularity ratings are dropping starting wars makes you popular again in the US.  Not with me.   I don't give much of a shit about the supposed "strategic interests of the US global empire."  I give many shits about supporting corrupt dictatorships and illegal invasions by the US.

So HW:

• As director of the CIA:  Active supporter of Operation Condor.  Bad stuff.  Very bad stuff.
• As VP to Reagan:  Up to his eyeballs in Iran-Contra.  He should have been criminally prosecuted for that.  And he didn't give a flying fuck about the facts about Iran Air Flight 655 being shot down.  'Cos Amurica.
• Willie Horton has been covered.  It was the beginning of really filthy election politics.  HW was a dirty fighter.
• As President:  He lacked the "Vision Thing" both in domestic and foreign policy.  He was reactive domestically and wrongly proactive in foreign policy.  He made big mistakes. The illegal invasion of Panama.  And, as you say, many things about the Gulf War were immoral.

So it has been a hagiographic week.  The man was certainly no saint.  He went out of his way to support corrupt dictators and waged war without considering the consequences.

Thanks for your response.  Although I was alive when HW was president, I wasn't very aware politically during that time.  I know next to nothing about what he did as head of the CIA.

[Palimpsest]

Just now, hoipolloi said:

Bush 41 was cruelly dismissive of AIDS and its victims to the point that he arguably set back research & medical care for years. 

Yep.  But he gets credit because he finally signed the ADA and Ryan White Act.  When pushed over a barrel. 

And don't get me started on the supposedly sainted Ronald Reagan and his non-response to the AIDS epidemic.   

[hoipolloi]

7 minutes ago, Palimpsest said:

the supposedly sainted Ronald Reagan

If I believed in a hell, I'd hope that both Saint Ronnie and his vile wife Nancy are there for the long haul.

Reagan was another terrible human being and does not get a pass on Iran-Contras or anything else although there is perhaps a real question as to whether he was already suffering from Alzheimer's at that time.

ETA: Bush 41 was also rumored to have a long-running affair with his staffer, Jennifer Fitzgerald:

Quote

As colorful stories from Clinton's sexual past in Arkansas began to surface during the campaign, a Clinton aide began digging into the senior Bush's own robust adultery. This included, writes Kelley, two long affairs -- one with Jennifer Fitzgerald, Bush's White House deputy chief of protocol, who, as the Washington Post once slyly put it, "has served President-elect George Bush in a variety of positions," and one with an Italian woman with whom he set up house in a New York apartment in the 1960s. The Clinton aide told Kelley, "I took my list of Bush women, including one whom he had made an ambassador, to his campaign operatives. I said I knew we were vulnerable on women, but I wanted to make damn sure they knew they were vulnerable too." After the eruption over Clinton's mistress Gennifer Flowers died down, sexual infidelity did in fact become a moot issue in the campaign.

And, yes, I know -- Kitty Kelley. Nonetheless, read that article.

[Drala]

4 minutes ago, hoipolloi said:

Yes - Iran-Contras. Bush 41 was deeply entwined in that illegal, deadly & highly destructive affair. The most visible legacies of that debacle, for Americans anyway, are the thousands of desperate people from Central America seeking to escape their countries -- which Bush 41 helped destabilize & ruin. There's a lot of stuff at that link and none of it exonerates Bush 41 but in fact makes it clear he was a fucking criminal along with those he pardoned.

IMO the "Willie Horton thing" was worse than politics as usual. It gave rise directly to what we see today with the red-hatted MAGAts and in-your-face racism & nationalism.

Bush 41 was cruelly dismissive of AIDS and its victims to the point that he arguably set back research & medical care for years. 

In short, he was NOT a nice person and was arguably a very bad man. 

Thanks for responding.  As I commented above to Palimpsest, I wasn't very aware politically during the 80's and 90's.  I was focused on raising kids, working, and going to school.  I started to pay more attention to politics after 9/11 and the second invasion of Iraq.  I'd forgotten about Iran-Contra...it barely hit my radar when it took place.  I remember hearing about it on the news, but I can't say I truly understood the implications, other than to say it reinforced my general impression of US political leadership as Satan's lapdogs.  Also, I know nothing about HW's response to the AIDS crisis.  I have a much sharper awareness of Reagan's dithering on that issue.

[hoipolloi]

6 minutes ago, Drala said:

wasn't very aware politically during the 80's and 90's.  I was focused on raising kids, working, and going to school.

Exactly what I was doing at that time as well.

Although I was aware of Iran-Contras while it was happening, I did not have a good grasp of how seriously bad & illegal the whole thing was till years later. As that Brown University website points out, it's all probably worse than we know because Bush 41 refused to make records available, pardoned criminals, and generally obfuscated the hell out of everything.

EVEN Kitty Kelley gets this (emphasis added0:

Quote

 

[Salon] You've gone through this before, of course, when Frank Sinatra tried to block publication of your unauthorized biography of him. How would you compare the heat you felt from Sinatra and his crowd and what you're going through now?

[KK] It's worse now, because there's more at stake. With Sinatra, you just worried about getting the bejabbers beat out of you. But with the Bushes, they work on all sorts of levels to destroy the messenger so the message can't come through. But the message is the message. The stuff I've done is solid. Did I get everything? No. And you know something, we better hurry and try to get all the information we can get -- because this president [Bush 43] is trying to lock it all up through executive order, which means you won't be able to get presidential history, because the files and everything will be locked up.

 

 

[Palimpsest]

11 minutes ago, hoipolloi said:

although there is perhaps a real question as to whether he was already suffering from Alzheimer's at that time: 

We know more about the various forms of dementia now but Reagan survived much longer than most if he was beginning Alzheimer's during Iran-Contra.  Usually life expectancy is well under 10 years.  He was certainly losing it towards the end of his term though.  Perhaps he had another form of dementia that was lumped under Alzheimer's.

I've always thought that if there is a God She gave him dementia as a punishment for his repeated  "I do not recall" during the Iran-Contra investigation and his inability to recall anti-trust violations while he was president of the Screen Actors Guild.  He was slimy as fuck.  He was also an informant for McCarthy during the Red Scare.

[formergothardite]

Thank you guys for the info on GHW. I know my view of that period is heavily colored by the fact I was seeing everything at that time through the view of evangelical republican glasses. I haven't actually gone back and looked into him, but he sounds like a typical corrupt politician. 

[hoipolloi]

7 minutes ago, Palimpsest said:

I've always thought that if there is a God She gave him dementia as a punishment for his repeated  "I do not recall" during the Iran-Contra investigation and his inability to recall anti-trust violations while he was president of the Screen Actors Guild.  He was slimy as fuck.  He was also an informant for McCarthy during the Red Scare.

Such a fitting punishment. 

I never saw him as anything but a fucking dunce, a tool who would do & did anything for money. He was controlled primarily by Nancy who in turn pandered to her buddies & their connections (e.g., Betsy Bloomingdale), and later on obeyed her astrologer. 

 

[onekidanddone]

57 minutes ago, mamallama said:

Bush also said some pretty dispicable things about gay people although he supposedly changed that position in recent years.

Wasn't he the one who said he loved all his grandchildren even the "little brown ones".  If you have to specifically point  out that you love the 'brown ones' it means you don't see them as equal to the white ones.

[Maggie Mae]

Spoiler

 

This gif of Shrub. 

Vs. ole'combover 

Spoiler

 

I have to admit, when I first saw this this am, my first thought was "why is Hillary in with the ex-presidents?" Oh, right. She's still a wife. Would Bill have been expected to pick out Christmas Trees if he had won? 

Also, wow, Cheney's Wife and Quayle's wife just giving off eye daggers at the Trumps. 

43 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

Thank you guys for the info on GHW. I know my view of that period is heavily colored by the fact I was seeing everything at that time through the view of evangelical republican glasses. I haven't actually gone back and looked into him, but he sounds like a typical corrupt politician. 

People give him a pass, because unlike the current trash in the white house, they were WASPS. Which meant that they behaved in a dignified manner, no McDonald's Fish Fillets or red Christmas trees. 

From what I understand, HW was never really interested in domestic policy. He voted against the Civil Rights Amendment. There's still a group of weirdo swamp people who think he somehow was responsible for JFK's death. He did get Sadam out of Kuwait, but he also told Iraq  to start uprising against Sadam. Which they did, thinking that the US would have their back. Which we didn't at the time. 

[nausicaa]

1 hour ago, Alisamer said:

The Trumps are more like the Loomis Fargo Hillbilly Heist people, who moved directly from a single-wide trailer into a country club mansion across from the town mayor, but furnished it with velvet Elvis paintings and leopard print carpet and wondered why people were suspicious of their sudden extravagant displays of wealth.

Donald Trump is basically the walking depiction of "money can't buy class." He is just so shudder-inducingly classless and tacky in everything he does. 

I read a quote once that Trump is what a stupid person thinks is intelligence, what a weak person thinks is strength, and what a classless person thinks is wealth. The more I see of him, the truer it seems. 

[Maggie Mae]

Just now, nausicaa said:

Donald Trump is basically the walking depiction of "money can't buy class." He is just so shudder-inducingly classless and tacky in everything he does. 

I read a quote once that Trump is what a stupid person thinks is intelligence, what a weak person thinks is strength, and what a classless person thinks is wealth. The more I see of him, the truer it seems. 

So true. It's a horrible classist thing for me to say, but he's the reason people look down on the nouveau riche. He's what a super trashy trailer park person think of when they think "what would I do if I won the powerball." His suit is too big, his hair is stupid, he's loud and obnoxious. There's a reason he's not sharing his tax returns, and it's probably because they show he doesn't have "real" (comparative) wealth. 

[hoipolloi]

38 minutes ago, Maggie Mae said:

There's a reason he's not sharing his tax returns, and it's probably because they show he doesn't have "real" (comparative) wealth.

You know, that could actually be the real reason for him.

People fight like hell & lie like rugs to maintain their reputations as members of the wealthy elite. They're not nearly as bothered about what they did to acquire that wealth.

Quote

 

Wilbur Ross is not known for telling the truth. On a Sunday afternoon last fall, just back from a trip to Asia, Ross called Forbes to lie about his personal fortune. Forbes had listed the commerce secretary on its billionaires rankings for years, but his financial disclosure report revealed less than $700 million in assets. When pressed about the discrepancy, Ross calmly cited more than $2 billion in undisclosed assets, saying he had shifted a chunk of his fortune to a trust for his family.

Those billions apparently did not exist, but when six senators demanded an investigation, Ross insisted his statements contained a kernel of truth. “At the time of my conversation with the reporter, I was in the process of creating a trust as a mechanism to divest my assets in order to comply with my ethics agreement.” But Ross’ ethics agreement required him to divest, either by selling his assets or giving them away. Simply parking them in a trust was not enough.

 

 

[Howl]

Not related at all to this epic tweet above, which I just wanted to share with y'all. 

This is something that's pissing me off.  There's all this carrying on about how GHWB is the end of a golden era of something something something and GWHB was so something something and always hand wrote thank you letters and was friends with somebody somebody, even if their politics did not align. I lived through the GWHB years as an adult.  I did not trust him.  At all.  I specifically recall journalists who were fired for writing articles about his extramarital affairs, two of which were long term, and not one-night flings. 

Barak Obama and Michelle comported themselves with dignity and grace for EIGHT years in the face of relentless racism and name calling and Republicans who openly clarified that their entire purpose was to block every Democratic initiative and personally fuck over Obama.  I've never heard even a whisper of scandal or infidelity about the Obamas and I'm sure opposition research looked hard for some whiff of scandal and came up empty handed. 

 And I can't recall even ONE instance where Obama totally lost it and created a scene. No Drama Obama, indeed.  

So spare me all the bullshit about the end of grace and decency; the Obamas exemplified this. 

[DomWackTroll]

Tim Bayly: Trump is good for Christians because he's not lying to us about being a Christian, unlike the Secret Muslim and the Abortion Lady.