George W. Bush Saw Putin's Soul While Conservatives Said Nothing
Conservatives have been bashing President Obama for telling Vladimir Putin to stay out of the Ukraine or consequences would follow. Funny how quiet they were when George Bush had a man-crush on him
Conservatives have been getting their freak on over the Russian/Ukraine conflict and attacking President Obama vociferously since he told Putin that there would be consequences if he invaded.
Marco Rubio offered a ghostwritten eight-point plan that the president should implement immediately.
John McCain described Obama as “naïve” about Putin’s ambitions “to restore the Russian empire”.
Charles Krauthammer claimed that Obama fails to understand that American inaction creates a vacuum.
Rep. Mike Rogers says Putin is playing chess, Obama playing marbles. That's just to name a few of the many attacks that are flying at Obama just minutes after Putin moved into Crimea.
But when George Bush was in office and waxed poetically about Putin, they said nothing. What a shock, right?
Q: As president you met and dealt with many foreign leader...you write, "I've always been able to read people." Vladimir Putin, when you first met him you said you got a sense of his soul...
Bush: I looked in his eyes and saw his soul.
The Moderate Voice has a great piece up called: Ukraine: What a Difference Partisanship Makes
As Russian troops entered neighboring territory the president of the United States, in an address to the nation, expressed his deep concern at reports that Russian troops have “invaded a sovereign neighboring state.” “Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century,” the President said.
Referring to how Russia’s actions have raised serious questions about its intentions in the region, the President said, “These actions have substantially damaged Russia’s standing in the world. And these actions jeopardize Russians’ relations — Russia’s relations with the United States and Europe. It is time for Russia to be true to its word and to act to end this crisis.”
NBC News reported that, while waiting for the results of a European Union initiative, the administration and its allies are debating ways to punish Russia for its invasion, including expelling Moscow from an exclusive club of wealthy nations and canceling an upcoming joint NATO-Russia military exercise and that the President “and his top aides are engaged in urgent consultations with European and other nations over how best to demonstrate their fierce condemnation of the Russian operation.”
NBC also reported that “In the medium term, the United States and its partners in the Group of Seven, or G-7, the club of the world’s leading industrialized nations that also includes Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan, are debating whether to effectively disband what is known as the G-8, which incorporates Russia, by throwing Moscow out, the officials said.” Officials also said, “Russia’s pending membership in the World Trade Organization might also be affected.” However, “[t]he officials spoke on condition of anonymity because no decisions have yet been made and consultations with other countries involved were still under way.”
On Special Report, Charles Krauthammer explains that when the president says that the United States will stand with the international community he really means that “we are going to negotiate with a dozen other countries who will water down the statement” and that when the president affirms that there will be costs: “meaning in making a statement not even imposing a cost, but in making a statement about imposing a cost — for any military intervention” — whatever that means.
“What [the president is] saying is we’re not really going to do anything and we’re telling the world,” Krauthammer says.
At this point I have to disclose that the president making the remarks, above, about the Russian invasion is not President Obama but rather President Bush in August 2008, during the Russian invasion of Georgia.
However, Krauthammer’s remarks are indeed Krauthammer’s and are directed not at his ideological idol, President Bush, but rather at his favorite punching bag, President Obama, and the comments are in reference to the present Russian military intervention in Ukraine...read on.
Read the whole piece because it's really good.