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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (59757)	6/8/2007 10:28:15 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

How has Bush responded to all these slurs? With a grace that lesser men, particularly his critics, could not have mustered. A Gentleman In The White House By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Friday, June 08, 2007 4:20 PM PT Leadership: George W. Bush has suffered more barbs than any president since Richard Nixon. His critics could never display the decency he has shown for more than seven years on the national political stage. He's been called everything from Hitler to an ape. In between there have been accusations from public figures, some of them elected officials, that he is a liar, Alfred E. Neuman, an idiot, a drunk, a moron, Beelzebub, George bin Bush, a terrorist and a son of a bitch. Compared to such terms of endearment, calling him a greedy oil man who has blithely sent American boys to die in Middle Eastern deserts so he and his cronies could reap the financial benefits is almost a compliment. Before he was elected in 2000 and afterward, America was told by many that Bush is a shallow simpleton who lacks intellectual curiosity. "Doonesbury" cartoonist Gary Trudeau was happy, we're sure, to sustain the myth that Bush's IQ was 91, the lowest of any modern president. Comedians have ridiculed him without mercy. How has Bush responded to all these slurs? With a grace that lesser men, particularly his critics, could not have mustered. "I don't think we're serving our nation well by allowing the discourse to become so uncivil," Bush said when asked to respond to Sen. Ted Kennedy calling him a liar. This is the same Kennedy to whom Bush played the gracious host at the White House in January 2001. In a conciliatory gesture, the newly inaugurated president invited Kennedy and his entire family to watch a screening of "13 Days," a movie that chronicled the management of Kennedy's brothers, John and Robert, of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The courtesy extended to Kennedy and his family should not have come unexpectedly. During the 2000 campaign, Bush promised to return decency to a White House that had been sullied by eight years of the Clinton administration. (Remember Bill Clinton's liaisons just off of the Oval Office with intern Monica Lewinsky? Retired FBI agent Gary Aldrich writing about drug paraphernalia and sex toys hung on a White House Christmas tree? Aldrich's concern about Clinton staffers' clothes, demeanor and language? Their "apparent total disregard for honesty, integrity"? Reports of a trashed White House left behind by a Clinton administration exacting revenge on Bush because its vice president was unable to steal the election from him?) It would be hard to make a case that Bush has failed to restore the integrity that the office had lost under its predecessor. Many here and abroad disagree with his policies. That's their right, and they do it with a palpable venom. But the man has been as respectful of his critics as he has of his supporters — even the many critics who have savaged him like no other president. When Jimmy Carter said that "as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history," Bush had good reason to strike back. Douglas Brinkley, a Tulane University presidential historian and Carter biographer, said Carter issued "fighting words." But Bush, preferring to maintain the integrity of the office, refused to fight. The administration merely said that Carter is irrelevant. Bush took a similar high road at the death of Ann Richards. The former governor of Texas dismissed Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, in 1988, saying "He was born with a silver foot in his mouth." She also called Bush a jerk when he challenged her — and won — in the 1994 Texas gubernatorial race. "Laura and I pray for her family," Bush said after Richards died. "I'll miss her. . . . And so I'm sad she passed away." Last September, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, a man who has come fully unhinged by his hatred of Bush, snarkily asked of the president: "Do you have no sense of decency, sir?" Yes, George Bush has a sense of decency, one far more developed than those held by his around-the-bend critics. ibdeditorials.com