“Big ‘Perilous’ Change”: Now More Than Ever, George W. Bush Is On The Ballot
It’s probably safe to say no publication has more consistently promoted the idea that “George W. Bush is on the ballot” in 2012 than the Washington Monthly. And that goes beyond the usual issue of the Bush administration’s responsibility for the Great Recession. We’ve argued that the 2012 campaign closely resembles the 2000 precedent in the specific policies and agendas of the GOP nominees, and the likely trajectory of the country if Romney wins. That’s why we’ve published and promoted the e-book, Elephant in the Room: Washington in the Bush Years. We’ve been here before.
But as election day approaches, there’s a final parallel that’s worth underlining: Romney is emulating Bush’s mendacious claim to be a “uniter not a divider,” and far more moderate than his party. As Paul Glastris reminds readers in the Editor’s Note in the upcoming November/December issue of the magazine (a sneak preview is available here), W. relied a lot on misleading voters about his relationship with his party:
One early summer day in 2000 I was summoned to the Oval Office along with several other White House staffers to get instructions from President Bill Clinton on what he wanted to say in his upcoming speech at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, a speech I was assigned to cowrite. But the president was in political strategist mode that day, and in the midst of downloading his thoughts on the speech he launched into a long soliloquy about the dynamics of the presidential contest and the nature of the man Al Gore was up against, Texas Governor George W. Bush. “Let me tell you something,” he said at one point. “Bush is a lot more conservative than people realize.”
The Big Dog certainly got that right, and the scary but unmistakable thing is that the Republican Party which Mitt Romney is trying to distance himself from at the last minute (rhetorically, though not substantively in any major way) is if anything considerably more conservative than it was in 2000. And if there’s any actual split between Romney and his party, it will only produce incompetent and dystfunctional government, as it often did when W. tried to exhibit “compassion” in order to appeal to swing constituencies:
The ideological contradictions unleashed within the GOP during those years have only grown. We see it in the increasingly stormy and dysfunctional relationship between the corporate and Tea Party wings of the party, in the freak show that was the 2012 GOP primary, and in the bottomless, robotic mendacity of the Mitt Romney campaign.
Yep, we’ve heard it all before. And as someone who was on to Bush’s game in 2000, and thinks he won (or to put it more accurately, succeeded in being inaugurated) because Democrats let him become the candidate of “safe change,” the possibility that Romney will succeed in the exact same scam is maddening.
Every voter should think about ol’ W. when they go to vote this year, and ask themselves: “Do we want to go back down that road again?”
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, November 2, 2012
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mykeystrokes.com 
Yeah; I can already see the stupified look on Mitt’s face as an aid tells him a nuclear device was detonated in D.C.. Mitt pauses then goes right back to reading a book called, “The Littlest Corporate Raider” to an elementary school class.
Upon finishing the book; Mitt; holding a seven year old girl like a shield in front of him; demands to be whisked off to “Air Force One”.
Throwing the helpless little girl to the ground; Mitt dives for the rear seat saying, “Sorry little girl; you’re on your own. It’s all about personal responsibility”
Shaking and quivering like a dog shitting peach seeds; Mitt is taken to an underground bunker where Ann awaits his arrival.
“Oh” she says, “I was so worried about you Mitty; I saw you using that middle class child as a shield and all I could think was,
‘Should have picked a wealthier kid Baby. No middle class child has enough meat on them to stop a bullet.’ I knew you should have worn you’re Magic Mormon Underwear.”
Grinning like a Fat, Fascist Cat; Mitt; washing off the urine and feces running down the back of his legs says,
“Not to worry my Pampered Puritanical Mormon Maiden; I purchased a Goldman-Sachs financial investment deal that pays off if the White House is destroyed by terrorists during my Reign; er, I mean my Administration.”
“We are sittin’ pretty Baby”
“Now I have to go on TV and console the nation; and explain how another tax cut for our wealthy friends will help insure that these terrorists don’t attack again. At least not until we can get another Black guy in here to blame it on”
As he skips away; Mitt can be heard singing to himself: (to the tune of “Yankie Doodle Dandy”)
“Mitt Romney took us back to war;
got paid a pretty penny”
“Put it in his wife’s trust fund;
and claimed he hadn’t any”
“Romney sold our lives away;
he’s a Fascist lion”
“Says we don’t count anyway;
poor people are for dyin’.”
“
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