Meet the Press: Rich Lowry Sez Bush Agenda Hurt By Bush Derangement Syndrome
By Nicole Belle Monday Dec 29, 2008 10:00am
I'm so sick of the false equivalencies and lack of context of the conservative commentators and pundits out there, who get opportunity time and time again to spin their failures as somehow the fault of Democrats.
On Meet the Press, David Gregory notes that the tone of the Bush administration changed from the promised "compassionate conservative/uniter, not a divider" to its take-no-prisoners partisanship reality. Rich Lowry acknowledges that it was so, but blames it on the sixteen year warfare of Democrats and Republicans refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of the other party's president.
A couple of things…one, Bush had a very simple view of how this works. You run on your agenda, and then you’re elected and you try to pass your agenda. And that seems pretty straightforward and basically admirable to me. But a couple things happened with the tone. One, he had entered into Washington where there is this ongoing revenge warfare, between the parties. Where Republicans were going to get revenge for Iran-Contra with Whitewater and the Monica scandal and the Democrats were going to get revenge for that. And you had about a sixteen year period where neither side would really accept the legitimacy of the other party’s president.
Um, Rich? Was Bill Clinton legitimately elected to office? Was there an extraordinary and so-legally-questionable-that-SCOTUS-specifically-limited-the-precedent-to-that-one-case decision that placed Clinton in office? No? So what was the basis of the lack of respect of the legitimacy of Bill Clinton's claim to the presidency? Sour grapes over Iran-Contra.
Let's remember, Mr. "History in a Vacuum" Lowry, were the Republicans guilty of crimes in the Iran-Contra scandal? They were? Quelle suprise! Was Clinton guilty of anything besides bad investing in the Whitewater scandal? Hmmm....isn't that funny...he wasn't. So the last eight years have been bad for poor George Bush, forcing him to be the nasty partisan war criminal that he is because of a sixteen year partisan war based on reality on the Democratic side and on the Republican side based on what? Being pissed that they've been caught outside the law? Well, to quote another blogger, boo-freakin'-hoo. How typically Republican.
And for the record, it's unadulterated crap that the left would never accept Bush. In the days after 9/11, Bush coasted on record approval ratings, ratings that showed that the WHOLE country--right, left and sideways--were all pulling for him. He pissed it away with declaring war on a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and ignoring the entire Gulf Coast during Katrina. The left looked at his actions, not some made-up reasoning of entitlement to the office.
Figures that once again, Lowry doesn't know his ass from his elbow. Why does he keep getting on these programs? Isn't it about time we get someone who knows what they're talking about?
Transcripts below the fold
GREGORY: Overall, that change in tone, that missed opportunity there…there was a real feeling that he (George W. Bush) would never be accepted. Karl Rove and others said, ‘You know what? The country—the left will never accept you, you gotta put your pedal to the medal here and go for the agenda.’ And that’s what they did.
LOWRY: A couple of things…one, Bush had a very simple view of how this works. You run on your agenda, and then you’re elected and you try to pass your agenda. And that seems pretty straightforward and basically admirable to me. But a couple things happened with the tone. One, he had entered into Washington where there is this ongoing revenge warfare, between the parties. Where Republicans were going to get revenge for Iran-Contra with Whitewater and the Monica scandal and the Democrats were going to get revenge for that. And you had about a sixteen year period where neither side would really accept the legitimacy of the other party’s president. And then also, I think it goes to more broadly to Bush’s capabilities. You know, he was much better as a “Decider” than a persuader. He was never good at making the argument and therefore, he didn’t put much effort into making the argument.
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because it is in the interest of the corporate media to have their guys get their agenda aired. Public interest ("news") is immaterial.
Dubya the "uniter" with his "Compassionate Conservatism". Be honest, your guy completely failed.
Is this the guy that got all turned on when he thought Sarah Palin was winking at him through the TV??
what a wanker.....
When all a woman has to do is wink, is a sure sign of a guy who never gets any ass.
Corporate Welfare Mommy & Daddy make a baby.
Daddy makes a donation to Harvard.
Mommy teaches Sonny how to knot a tie.
Sonny graduates from Harvard.
Daddy gets Sonny a job with the Networks.
We have to listen to elite-class swill for 60 years.
Perfect!
Whore sez you have a VERY attractive penis!
"Lowry doesn't know his ass from his elbow. Why does he keep getting on these programs? Isn't it about time we get someone who knows what they're talking about?"
Like Joe Lieberman--stay tuned. Gregory will have him on to explain his "Independent Democratic" viewpoint (as though he were speaking for Democrats everywhere) in short order.
More tripe from GE/NBC.
You're so darn right.
I want a real America. Not one built for the spoiled rich kids to poop in. They think it's all right for everyone but them to follow them around with open hands point up for a tip.
I have a tip for them. If you think your rich lifestyle is so good, why do you have to hire bodyguards to defend it?
of EVERYTHING. Period. He "decided" better than he explained, Rich, you dispshit, because he didn't have any facts to back up his arguments, about ANYTHING. What an idiot Lowry is.
I don't believe he ever gave anything much thought. He just decided based on the levels of testosterone he felt at work in his body.
to call open season on these traitors?
Really!!!
In almost any other country you care to name, these fascist traitor bitches would be either in jail or dead by now.
But not this country....noooooo! we're too busy watching American fuckin Idol to give a damn.
Pathetic.
I already have. These corprate welfare qeens are so entrenched however, it's gonna take years to purge them from the system. Of course, a new fairness doctrine would help out alot!
Lowry believes that waterboarding is not torture.
Lowry quote: “ I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Lowry
What a dumbass.
The right will never stop defending Bush. It's almost funny to hear them try. But not that funny.
He's not there to govern, but to distract attention away from those who really govern.
In that, I suppose he was a real success---'coz so far the only arrests, trials, and convictions are for peripheral entities attached to teh Administration....while the core players are free, and look to remain so for the foreseeable future (unless the Dems suddenly rediscover their spine)
I think it backfired though. I think the Bush Regime made it even more apparent that there is another force that is truly running this country. I have never really believed in my heart that The People ever really had a voice in the election their leaders, especially the President. Also as Nicole pointed out, after 9/11 Bush had practically the whole country and the world for that matter behind him, but he didn't piss it away, he used it to accumulate all the extraordinary powers he did into the Executive Branch. That was part of it. That's why I believe to this day that 9/11 was an inside job. The Republicans have to say something to excuse the nightmare that was the Bush administration. Why would two sessions of Congress in a row do NOTHING...nothing of any real consequence to stop Dick and George in their tracks? Congress knew that they were destroying this country and shitting all over the Constitution and yet stood by and let it happen. I think Lowry, like all the other GOP mouthpieces are simply doing damage control and making excuses. Not very good ones at that. The Republicans are the ones who carry most of the responsibility for the inexcusable mess this country is in. It's theirs, they own it. Now in order to restore their reputation, they have to make the WarPigs look good also.
So how come Bush didn't mention Social Security privitization during the 2004 campaign?
[Deleted. Off topic-Sitemonitor]
CEO Knee-pads in her kit-bag?
That apart, you're right on much of your criticism of the Clenis.
Michael Parenti thinks Obama might be as bad as Clinton, although maybe not too much worse.
Probably, since Vietnam, maybe Korea--though you could argue 'since McKinley'--committing war crimes is part of the 'bidness' oif being President.
...you divert to Clinton....and I thought the Conservatives had used that formula up.
Comparing Dubya to Clinton as if they're equal...Lol.
That is just sad...what has Clinton got to do with any of this? Really?
President or Senator?
yes.
Indeed, all of the presidents were murderers and those who voted sanctioned it.
That's GOTTA be a rhetorical question, right?
He's a representative of the Party of the Corporate State. It's corporate media, right?
And:
In a Corporate State, corporate media are the State Media.
Excellent!
...we can always count on the wingnuttiness of guys like Lowry to supply an anchor of continuity and predictability. When one can't count on having a job, or a place to live, or health insurance, Lowry and his ilk will always be here to provide a sense that some things never change. Personally, I'd rather have jobs, housing, and health care be what we take for granted and risk being surprised by Rich Lowry. Sadly, that's just not the way things work.
No regrets.
What a bunch of horseshit.
I refuse to watch.
When in public waiting rooms, I have my universal teevee "off switch."
- aww - the teevee must be busted!
First off, none of these peple are shrinks, they have not the education in sociology or psychology to come up with syndromes.
Secondly: boosh was hardly very popular when he first got in. The activist-conservatives on the Supreme Court essentially violated the US Constitution and appointed him for the job, angering many, but the rank-and-file American was ready to give him a chance, but even then he frittered it. Conservatives weren't enamored with how he worked a little with Teddy Kennedy on education policy, and there were all those pictures of him on vacation; he was already setting some kind of record.
Thirdly: Like the article said, boosh was at record approval levels after 9-11. I thought that odd at the time since it happened under his watch, but I was expecting a "rally-around-the-flag" effect.
Fourthly: boosh and his people seemed to lose sight of when things were going bad both economically and foreign policy and continued with Pollyanna prognostications.
Fiftly: WMD's were never found in Iraq, and we realized that they must be manipulating the intelligence. The intelligence wasn't bad, merely raw as intelligence is, but it's handling was bad.
Thirdly: boosh was hardly very popular when he first got in. The activist conservatives on the Supreme Court essentially appointed him for the job, angering many, but the rank-and-file American was ready to give him a chance, but even then he frittered it. Conservatives weren't enamored with how he worked a little with Teddy Kennedy on education policy, and there were all those pictures of him on vacation; he was already setting some kind of record, phone buggings, extreme redraction etc.
Sixthly: There was a drip-by-drip number of scandals: FISA violations, outing Valierie Plame, torture at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, data sweeps.
Seventhly: Domestic emergencies where he either didn't respond like Katrina, or only selectively, rebuilding only the wealthier neighborhoods.
Eightly:"boosh continuing acting like some kind of over-aged fratboy, can't wait to dig into that pig, that little shoulder massage of Angela Merkel, acting like a drunken goon at the Olympics.
I could probably continue. But if I may create a syndrom of my own, I'd call it boosh worship syndrome.
Sorry I meant extreme rendition. Redaction is deleting from the record, which come to think of it was what boosh's non-scientific agency heads did to scientific documents produced by their agencies.
I love the way you count...;)
Because of a medical condition that causes my blood to boil when I witness lies, obfuscation and plain BS, I find it healthier to avoid the Sunday talks.
This week, in light of the joy of the season and Obama's desire for Kumbahyah(sp?) I figured I'd give them a view.
Unfortunately, for my condition, it was at the exact moment you reference above (Rich Lowrey's claim that negative reaction to Bush was essentially all about revenge politics).
In the past, as my blood would rise to a boil, I might have had to dissipate some of the heat by throwing a shoe at the screen. This time however, I was able to take a deep breath, reach for the remote and calmly press power off.
As my blood temperature began to retun to normal, I mumbled about the corporate media's obsession with the presentation of false equilivancy, walked into the kitchen and gave my wife a hug.
Thanks for your post Nicole. It's nice knowing someone else is watching, so I don't have to.
I stopped too...many better things to do on Sunday mornings. Think of how many times these "experts" were wrong this election campaign....not to mention the fact that most of those clowns clearly have agendas.
Jesus, Lowry even looks like a conservative. What a sexless turd. No wonder he got all hot and bothered over Palin winking at the Vice Presidential debate.
This guy must have got his ass kicked reularly in school. What a complete tool. Even W.F. Buckley's kid couldn't stand this little weasel.
And fuck the corporate "librul" media, for putting this imbecile on t.v.
And when will someone start pointing out on t.v. that these folks have been, and are, WRONG about EVERY FREAKING THING they ever said or wrote? Discredit the bullshit!
After the last 8 years, there is no excuse for any libreral to be put on the defensive by these guys. Wingnuts won't even try to debate me anymore, because I make them sound like blithering idiots within 30 seconds. And when I challenge them with money to show the "courage of their convictions," they ALWAYS back down! That's because they are full of shit, and they know it deep down inside. I've had people laugh their asses of at wingnuts saying "why don't you take his bet? Sounds like he knows what he's talking about." Shuts them up real quick!
Jeepers, as it turns out, the opposition usually limits how far any president can pursue an agenda. This is how the government operates. But the Bush White House was surprised, after condemning anyone who didn't think like them, and wiping their ass with the constitution, that people didn't act like compliant little Stepford Wives, and cheerfully hand him another copy of the Constitution, while he turned the USA into a moral cesspool?
Riiiiiiiight... and all of 1972 America wishes they could have broke into the Watergate hotel also, y'know, to show their support for Nixon. Bush should thank his lucky stars that the American population hovers right next to him in the stupidity department. It's how he got anything done.
Please... tell me all about it after ruining the country, and demonstrating your racist, Obama derangement syndrome, conservative dickheads.
Clinton didn't sexually abuse anyone.
I have never seen a nation so hung up about sex.
It's mostly the hypocrisy that bothers me, especially Republicans. The same guys who were denouncing Clinton, you'll find them on Saturday night, at some strip club filled with other Republican business men sticking $1 bills in the panties of 18 year olds and the next morning you'll find almost all of them at a mega church. Pure BS. From Larry Craig to Tom Delay. Hypocrits. All of them.
America needs to lighten up about sex. Here, watch this European ad for eye glasses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY9P1nYkPLo
I actually doubt many of them attend church as anything other than a photo op.
who were denouncing Clinton, you'll find them on Saturday night, at some strip club filled with other Republican business men sticking $1 bills in the panties of 18 year olds and the next morning you'll find almost all of them at a mega church.
And don't forget all of those who molested children, including those oh-so- holy men of God who did their share of dirty deeds.
Get serious. And then lawry nods his head up and down just like another journalistic puppet. What a shill.
Yup, it's hard to take...this teflon idiot in the WH getting a free ride because it's always somebody else's fault.
That's just the way the right wing nut cakes work it. ONLY the right wing nut cakes eat this shit up, and all the media shills allow this to go on and on and on and on.
Sickening...but it's the cancer that has penetrated into their kool aid reality...and consequently, they believe it; and they are just dumb enough to think "when spoken, becomes truth". Thanks to the rovian mentality.
expects us to believe that George Bush is able to make intelligent decisions about complex issues that he cannot properly articulate. Sort of like Tommy the Pinball Wizard or Rainman the Savant. There is a simple rule I use in assessing the students I tutor from time to time: If you can't explain it to someone else you don't understand it.
who didn't even understand the plot of "My Pet Goat".
Gotta stiffie when Sarah winked at him. The man's an a-hole.
Anthrax Coulter calling Lowry a girly man or some other insult like that. As mentioned in the links, the cons are OBSESSED with labeling Democratic men as sissies and Democratic women as masculine lesbians. These people are so incredibly insecure about their own sexual identity that they project like crazy. it's hard to imagine cons who are less masculine than Lowry, other than maybe Tucker Carlson, or David Brooks, or... well there's a pretty long list.
'a pretty long fist'
I won't call it straight up derangement. I'm angry. And these paid enabling mouthpieces of shite like Lowrylife and Manthrax don't help. They stand at the gravesite with muddy shovels, laughing.
it's amazing that these hacks can be so wrong, so often, and for so long and keep their jobs. Anyone else this incompetent would be living under a bridge in a cardboard box pushing a shopping cart full of aluminum cans. With track records like this, the only conclusion is that they are not on air to educate or inform, but to sell an agenda.
David Gregory wanted to be the next Timmeh, and he got his wish. But let's remember what Timmeh's job really was: To protect and serve the ruling caste in Washington. Mayor of Cokietown.
Don't ever expect anything but bullshit from Pressed Meat. The powers behind the throne use people like Rich Lowry to keep them safe from public scrutiny, and David Gregory is there to give them a pulpit from which to define and declare Conventional Wisdom.
So it has been; so it is; so it shall be. Unless the blogosphere kicks their fucking asses. Let us proceed to do so.
to get outside for some fresh air on Sunday morning.
This is all Gregory's fault (another insufferable TOOL of the Republican-controlled politically ELITE Military/Industrial/Info-Tainment Complex that spoon-feeds us what they want us to THIMK.
I KNOW that I would much rather watch David Schuster five days a week than Gregory. I can't imagine that Gregory is going to do NBC any ratings favors with Meet The Press in the long haul.
As for the current crop of Republican Talking-Head-Appologists... NUT CASES... ALL OF THEM.
in the so called "liberal" media, is it any wonder most americans are dazed and confused. when all we are fed is a steady stream of crap from the MONEY PARTY and then it is called "liberal," it becomes apparent that the concept of a "free press" is dead in amerika. all we have is right wing propaganda and more right wing propaganda. when the Fairness Doctrine was attacked and abolished, the voice of objectivity went silent in this country leaving only the right wing echo chamber. it's been so long now, most americans take it for granted and assume we are a center right nation. how could we be otherwise with such a media?
This is quite possibly the biggest crock of sh*t I’ve ever heard. “[H]e was much better as a “Decider” than a persuader.”?!1? History will most likely show that a vast majority of W’s decisions were made without his knowledge or input. Drug addled alcoholics don’t make decisions; they just roll with the flow.
the problem with drug addled alcoholics is that they just roll with the flow, and what flows is a huge load of shit that rolls down hill where "we the people" are on target to get it right in the face.
What was up with David Gregory's coughing fit? All through that show >COUGH< he repeatedly coughed loudly right into his microphone>COUGH< >COUGH<. Needless to say >COUGH<, this made an already difficult chore (watching MTP) nearly >COUGH< impossible. Don't they have cough buttons they're supposed to hit when they cough or something? Thought I'd heard that somewhere.
Anyway, somebody get the man a Vicks.....
the problem isn't with lowrey, he's just delivering the as usual load of crap that the gop demands of him. the problem resides in david gregory who isn't worthy of filling timmeh's shoes. he should have held lowrey's feet to the fire over that claptrap, but as usual gregory yet again whimped out refusing to do his job.
Russert way more credit than he deserves. Sympathy should be extended to his family for his early death, but he was just as much in the tank for GWB as the rest of the MSM. He let a lot of the Bush hacks spew as much propaganda as they needed to.
Timmeh carried water for Rethugs and Gregory continues, IMNSHO.
"He pissed it away with declaring war on a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and ignoring the entire Gulf Coast during Katrina."
I don't think that point can be stressed enough: Monkey Boy had, quite literally, the chance to unite the world. He went from a lame duck in the making, (remember how lousy things were getting straight out of the gate with Bushco?) to having the opportunity to bring the world together as hasn't been seen since the days of Alexander.
And he pissed it all way for his oil cronies & almost nothing else. Judas is pointing at him & laughing & saying, man I thought I got a bum deal,...
"opportunity" such as the WTC collapse give him the chance to do good for the world never entered his brain.
I was going to stay out of this......but the Clinton vs. W thing pushed my buttons a bit.......anyone who thinks Clinton was not as bad as W, or had more noble motivations than W is out of their mind. Clinton's web intersects the entire Bush dynasty period, and you may even be able to eventually trace the Bush crime family on through to Dallas in 63. So please, let us not act as though the Mena Airport/drug running never happened, or forget that Waco & O.K. City happened during the "he only got a blowjob" presidency. They are both cut from the same criminal cloth, have similar lists of people they are associated with who turn up dead.....so lets build a prison for just ex-prez's and congress critters who violate the laws of the land.....that would be a government program I could back....
When everyone is a villain, it doesn't take much thought or work to carry on.
I actually woke up and turned on the TV whilst this little guy was spewing that bullshit. I was thinking, 'wait a minute, I did not drink to excess or otherwise overindulge last night....this is really happening?'.
Where do they find these little puds, and why are they not defending freedom in Iraq?
Little man, whatever your name, I hope I am never nearby, drunk holding a shovel, when you decide to start spouting this malarky.
Dude above is right about that Clinton guy. Perhaps the greatest republican president ever.
Ok thanks for the space.....
Getting someone who know what they're talking about is never the goal of the reich-wing showes - don't be silly.
*
Good point about the almost total support for Bush after 9/11.
Two other things blew.
1) The inability for the mental and moral midgets on talk radio to restrain themselves from attacking liberals not to long after 9/11.
2) The right wing thinking this support was carte blanche to pass every conservative wet dream through Congress. This fittingly led to the suspension of many regulations which led to the current financial collapse which swept the GOP out of office and might have destroyed them as a conservative party.
One can hope.
the talk radio monopoly has been used by the GOP for 20 years to do nothing but attack anything left of way right and toads like lowry have been living off that coordinated uncontested repetition. they need limbaugh and sons to prechew and launder their talking points so they don't look so absurd when they repeat them. he's riding the talk radio bandwagon and now he laments the partisanship. what a fucking moron. the iran contra investigations were not made up bullshit and had there been any patriotic republicans around to help out then the bush crime family would have been put in jail and we wouldn't be in this fucking mess now.
I have yet to read a Rich Lowery column in which one of his idiotic tirades was actually based on truth. Granted, I haven't read very many of his columns because they get me in a bad mood. But I've read enough to know that he is a not so bright, narrow minded baffoon and I just cannot fathom now he became a syndicated columnist. I just don't get it.
Once they get on the list at the networks, they are in the house I guess.
Some go to these regular Jonah Goldberg goofin-heimers just for the outragious retorts and BS they spew. "To livin it up" they say.
Thats why news is biased and not so much news.
Repubs can look mostly poor in the light of truth so the light is biased.
Democratic opposition had nothing to do with the Bush/Cheney program.
Lowry must know about the meeting Cheney had with the five moderate Republican senators in December 2000 (http://www.atlargely.com/2008/04/former-repub...) described in Lincoln Chafee's book "Against the Tide."
"In steady, quiet tones, the Vice President-elect laid out a shockingly divisive political agenda for the new Bush administration, glossing over nearly every pledge the Republican ticket had made to the American voter. President-elect Bush had promised that healing, but now we moderate Republicans were hearing Richard Cheney articulate the real agenda: A clashist approach on every issue, big and small, and any attempt at consensus would be a sign of weakness.
We would seek confrontation on every front. He said nothing about education or the environment or health care; it was all about these new issues that were rarely, if ever, touted in the campaign. The new administration would divide Americans into red and blue, and divide nations into those who stand with us or against us. I knew that what the Vice President-elect was saying would rip the closely divided Congress apart. We moderates had often voted with President Clinton on things that powerful Republican constituencies didn't like: an increase in the minimum wage, a patients' bill of rights, and campaign finance reform."
I was a little disappointed that you folks didn't post the video later in the discussion when this dud(e) got pwned by Richard Wolfe regarding American foreign policy and the fact that America hasn't been struck since 9/11. Great sequence there.
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