Politico does a piece about the 43th President and the Hamas/Israel conflict and a video released with his comments and views….
Remember George W. Bush? The 43rd president of the United States is the only living chief executive who appears to actually understand the concept of retirement. But he finds himself back in the headlines this month — in the most George W. Bush of ways.
In a video from a private California event obtained by Axios, the 77-year-old Texan opines onstage about what lies ahead for Israel and Gaza. With a twang straight out of 2003, Bush says that, “I’m kind of a hardliner on all this stuff,” then goes on to dismiss calls for restraint as if they were calls to heed the U.N.’s opinions about WMDs.
Negotiating with killers is not an option,” he says in an on-stage interview with presidential historian Mark Updegrove. Before long, he’s preemptively dinging public doubts about war. “It’s not going to take long for people [to say], ‘It’s gone on too long. Surely, there’s a way to settle this through negotiations.’”
Lest anyone has forgotten, that weak-kneed approach to evildoers isn’t Bush’s thing. Of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he adds: “We’ll find out what he made out of.” It’s pretty clear that Bush hopes Netanyahu is made out of whatever substance makes you deaf to namby-pamby calls for diplomacy and caution and the sensitive addressing of terrorists’ root causes.
Agree or disagree with Bush’s analysis of how to respond to Hamas’ gruesome killing spree, the video still makes for jarring déjà vu.
For a decade and a half, we’ve gotten used to a very different W — the hugger of Michelle Obama, the (surprisingly good) painter of wounded warriors and immigrants and the forthright disapprover of insurrectionism, isolationism and nativism. He’s been dissed by MAGA Republicans and embraced by Washington Democrats and rendered largely irrelevant to our political and policy divides.
Now, though, the bloody terrorist assault and the looming war make him seem less like a man out of time than a man of the moment, even without the newsy video…..
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In the years since, Bush’s standing has plummeted among the Republican base he once dominated. But in the Permanent Washington of policy pros and government veterans, he’s regularly cast as a good guy, a link to a better era. It’s a rose-colored image that would amaze many denizens of the capital during the furious years of his presidency.
Both the populist disdain and the centrist strange-new-respect are driven by the same source: Trump…..
image….Former President George W. Bush holds up a print copy of his “Portraits of Courage” exhibit at a press preview in Dallas, Texas, in 2017. | Laura Buckman/AFP via Getty
Unconvicted war criminals Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Kissinger should never have been allowed to grow old. What is wrong with us?
That said, I agree with the supportive, nuanced sentiment on Israel as laid out by John Fetterman.