Blindsided

[BurtWorm]

Michiko Kakutani's review of the Bush boy book won't be the last word, of course, but she picks up on what is an "interesting" point (as Bush would say) about Bush as president that should sit very uncomfortably on the minds of the wingers with the charge of rescuing his legacy to keep. The man (as we on the left knew when he wasn't even a gleam in the party's eye as candidate for governor, let alone president, was and remains a noodley, non-starting, wishy-washy, waste of space. Good luck making a hero out of your big fat zero, bagnuts!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/books/04book.html?hpw=&pagewanted=all

...

Several times in the book Mr. Bush uses the term “blindsided” to describe his feelings about a crisis that his advisers and cabinet seem not to have filled him in on. He says he felt “blindsided” over Abu Ghraib: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld “had told me the military was investigating reports of abuse at the prison, but I had no idea how graphic or grotesque the photos would be,” he writes. “The first time I saw them was the day they were aired on ‘60 Minutes II.’ ”

Mr. Bush says he told advisers he “never wanted to be blindsided like that again,” after a showdown between the White House and the Justice Department over a secret surveillance program. And he says “we were blindsided by a financial crisis that had been more than a decade in the making”: his focus, he writes, “had been kitchen-table economic issues like jobs and inflation. I assumed any major credit troubles would have been flagged by the regulators or rating agencies.”

...

Despite the eagerness of Mr. Bush to portray himself as a forward-leaning, resolute leader, this volume sometimes has the effect of showing the former president as both oddly passive and strangely cavalier.

For instance Mr. Bush writes about the failures to contain deteriorating security conditions in Iraq, continuing fights between the Pentagon and State Department, and his frustrations with Mr. Rumsfeld. But while he says that he had “planned to make a change at Defense as part of a new national security team” in 2004, he adds that he simply couldn’t come up with a replacement for Mr. Rumsfeld.He considered and rejected the ideas of putting Ms. Rice or Senator Joseph I. Lieberman in the job, and was rebuffed by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, who “was enjoying his retirement.”

...

And so Mr. Rumsfeld stayed on in the job until an old friend of Mr. Bush’s from high school and college (whom he had appointed to the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board) suggested Robert M. Gates as a replacement. “Why hadn’t I thought of Bob?” Mr. Bush wonders.

...

[burnsei sensei]

1. He was blindedsided because he was and is

dork sided!
Thank you Margaret Perrin!

[mysticalchick]

6. LOL

And no "slykick" is gonna tell me otherwise!

HEE!

[Winterblues]

2. “we were blindsided by a financial crisis that had been more than a decade in the making”:

Blind sided by something in the works for over a decade..That statement alone says it all about GW Bush*

[BurtWorm]

3. Yes indeed.

There it is. The Decider Decided to put that in. Brilliant Decidering.

[dchill]

4. "The Decider Decided to put that in..."

after Due Decideration.

[highplainsdem]

5. If he were any more clueless, he'd be blindsided by the sun rising and setting.

[BurtWorm]

7. kick

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. Holy Fuck! He assumed the regulators would regulate and warn him when he was in

full force to deregulate everything?

[BurtWorm]

10. That's SOP for Bush boy.

Sit back, enjoy yourself, let your delegated deciderers deciderate and come to you when they need you to nod and keep your charge.

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. What an incredible mental disconnect.

It's going to take all day to get my jaw off the floor.

[glitch]

13. His denials aren't very plausible are they?

He's guilty, and he'll spend the rest of his life trying to prove his innocence.

[The Backlash Cometh]

15. I don't know how he'll succeed in doing anything but painting himself

as a buffoon with these kind of explanations.

[glitch]

17. He can try to paint himself however he likes, but Clinton said don't underestimate his intelligence.

I agree with Clinton. He's got the low cunning of a successful street thug, only with big money backing.

He could very well be a malicious buffoon and he's definitely a fool, but he's not a hapless buffoon, buffeted by the dark clever actors around him. He knows what he's doing, he knows what he's done.

He's guilty and he's playing for cover.

[BurtWorm]

18. Or he may be well schooled in one of his dad's favorite games

Plausible deniability.

[glitch]

19. Indeedy. (although their plausibility is stretched beyond the breaking point) nt

[The Backlash Cometh]

20. True, The good ole boys down here love to be taken for fools.

That way, they can get away with anything they like.

[Brickbat]

9. Which just goes to show that his handlers and advisors knew he was incompetent, and kept him out of

the loop until it was absolutely necessary to include him. Time after time after time.

[BurtWorm]

11. He's the ideal Republican 'president.'

Pure figure head. (If 'pure' can ever properly be used to describe Bush boy.)

[glitch]

14. That's their story and they're sticking to it. nt

[ismnotwasm]

16. I'm glad someone else read it

And gave a review. I couldn't stand to myself. I'd have to take so many showers my water bill would go sky high and my skin would dry out.