# Barbara Bush sees the bright side **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 6, 2005, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-bush-sees-the-bright-side/320266 "2005-09-06T00:09:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Ghanima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Ghanima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ghanima)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2005, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-bush-sees-the-bright-side/320266/41 "2005-09-09T18:39:20Z")
I read this comment a day or two ago and I couldn’t help comparing it to Scarlet O’Hara claiming that the darkies were happy on the plantation and that they needed white folks to take care of them. A rolleyes just doesn’t do Barbara Bush justice, you know? ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2005, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-bush-sees-the-bright-side/320266/42 "2005-09-09T18:44:44Z")
> [@Ghanima](#): > > I read this comment a day or two ago and I couldn’t help comparing it to Scarlet O’Hara claiming that the darkies were happy on the plantation and that they needed white folks to take care of them. It reminded me more of a famous quote from another former “first lady.” From France. Something about cake. ---
**Author:** ![Electrical\_Storm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ac8455/32.png) [@Electrical\_Storm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electrical_Storm)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2005, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-bush-sees-the-bright-side/320266/43 "2005-09-09T18:51:58Z")
Texan here - Texas has no state income tax. Wow. Just, wow. :rolleyes: But hey, when you live in such a rarefied atmosphere as does Babs, reality is nothing more than a nagging detail you can shut out when the driver clinks shut the door to your limo. Yeah Babs, I can see how all the Katrina victims are really going to cash in on this. Works out well for them, doesn’t it? :rolleyes: Yes, the “underprivileged” love a good natural disaster to improve their lives. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2005, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-bush-sees-the-bright-side/320266/44 "2005-09-09T19:28:02Z")
So much so, that disasters of this caliber should be part of twelve step programs, no? Or how about as an addition to those from welfare to workfare programs? Heh. God, I’m sick. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2005, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-bush-sees-the-bright-side/320266/45 "2005-09-09T21:29:52Z")
Even poor people had possessions they cherished. Her remarks were insensitive and profoundly thoughtless. And if people are in such bad shape that losing all they own in a hurricane is actually a good thing, perhaps she ought to ask her husband and son why they let things get so bad in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2005, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-bush-sees-the-bright-side/320266/46 "2005-09-09T21:46:19Z")
> [@lavenderlemon](#): > > Even poor people had possessions they cherished. > > Her remarks were insensitive and profoundly thoughtless. > > And if people are in such bad shape that losing all they own in a hurricane is actually a good thing, perhaps she ought to ask her husband and son why they let things get so bad in the first place. I suspect that for Laura “Vacant Expression” Bush there are people and then there are _people_. People count. _People_ aren’t really real to her. Really, she’s a perfect match for Dubya. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Hung\_Mung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@Hung\_Mung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hung_Mung)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2005, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-bush-sees-the-bright-side/320266/47 "2005-09-09T22:27:53Z")
It just depresses the hell out of me to think that such a fucking heartless, cynical, vindictive twat like her has so much power. I’m going to dance the day that she dies. And I’m going to laugh really, really hard when O’Reilly sheds a little fake Visine tear on his little reality-bending game show. Fuck her. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2005, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-bush-sees-the-bright-side/320266/48 "2005-09-09T22:39:15Z")
> [@lavenderlemon](#): > > Even poor people had possessions they cherished. And if you’re poor, it probably hurts that much more to lose what little you had. ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-bush-sees-the-bright-side/320266/49 "2005-09-10T00:39:02Z")
Laura Bush is pretty stupid as well, she keeps calling it hurricane “Coreana” [http://movies.crooksandliars.com/What-is-The-Name-of-That-Hurricane.wmv](http://movies.crooksandliars.com/What-is-The-Name-of-That-Hurricane.wmv) ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-bush-sees-the-bright-side/320266/50 "2005-09-10T00:57:58Z")
**I got a bird to whistle, got a bird to sing, If I ain’t got Corina, life don’t mean a thing.** [But that’s Kansas City Blues anyway.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Joe_Turner) ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-bush-sees-the-bright-side/320266/51 "2005-09-10T01:07:22Z")
> [@World Eater](#): > > Laura Bush is pretty stupid as well, she keeps calling it hurricane “Coreana” > > [http://movies.crooksandliars.com/What-is-The-Name-of-That-Hurricane.wmv](http://movies.crooksandliars.com/What-is-The-Name-of-That-Hurricane.wmv) On her tour of the area (or wherever she went) she stated that things aren’t being mishandled. It’s just that the media keeps showing pictures of the same areas all the time, and that things are going pretty well, actually. What a moron. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-bush-sees-the-bright-side/320266/52 "2005-09-10T01:36:03Z")
> [@World Eater](#): > > Laura Bush is pretty stupid as well, she keeps calling it hurricane “Coreana” > > [http://movies.crooksandliars.com/What-is-The-Name-of-That-Hurricane.wmv](http://movies.crooksandliars.com/What-is-The-Name-of-That-Hurricane.wmv) Wow. I guess Dylan has been on her mind. _Corrina, Corrina_, _Hurricane_, they all get tangled up. How’d that go, on _Before the Flood?_ > [@](#): > > While preachers preach of evil fates > Teachers teach that knowledge waits > can lead to hundred-dollar plates. > Goodness hides behind its gates > But even the President of the United States > Sometimes must have > To stand naked. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-bush-sees-the-bright-side/320266/53 "2005-09-10T03:20:10Z")
> [@Hung Mung](#): > > It just depresses the hell out of me to think that such a fucking heartless, cynical, vindictive twat like her has so much power. Then you are going to love what Tom DeLay said today: > [@](#): > > U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s visit to Reliant Park this morning offered him a glimpse of what it’s like to be living in shelter. > > While on the tour with top administration officials from Washington, including U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao and U.S. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, DeLay stopped to chat with three young boys resting on cots. > \*\* > The congressman likened their stay to being at camp and asked, “Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?”\*\* > > They nodded yes, but looked perplexed. Apparently assholery is directly proportional to political power. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-bush-sees-the-bright-side/320266/54 "2005-09-10T03:32:04Z")
> [@Baldwin](#): > > As for their debts being wiped out – not that simple. Your car may be underwater and totalled, but you still have to make payments. The horrible bankruptcy bill passed earlier this year (literally written by credit card company lobbyists) makes it a lot harder to declare personal bankruptcy. Well, shoot. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-bush-sees-the-bright-side/320266/55 "2005-09-10T04:07:05Z")
OH god, just earlier today I was talking to my mother about Barbara’s remarks and she said that Laura makes her think of a Stepford Wife. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-bush-sees-the-bright-side/320266/56 "2005-09-10T04:22:41Z")
> [@Fear Itself](#): > > …Apparently assholery is directly proportional to political power. If so, Tom DeLay (R, Undead) would rule the world. ---
**Author:** ![Hung\_Mung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@Hung\_Mung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hung_Mung)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-bush-sees-the-bright-side/320266/57 "2005-09-10T04:46:03Z")
Are any of them NOT heartless, cynical, vindictive twats? Honestly, ANY single one of them? I realize that I’m pretty cynical saying so (and I recognize that a couple of people like McCain and Colin Powell seem to have kept their souls), but goddammit, it’s almost like no matter who I vote for, they’ll turn out to be a flesheating disease on the skin of America. I know a couple of local aldermen/women, so I know they’re in it to actually do good things and do them the right way. But this whole fucking mess is another example of the flim-flam, wool-over-the-eyes, pass-the-buck-an’-don’t-blame-me, where’s-mary-magdelene-and-a-cheeseburger BULLSHIT that is the unholy and contemptible mess we call leadership. Maybe if I were rich I’d at least get a goddamn taxcut, because that would make me feel a whole lot better about everything. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-bush-sees-the-bright-side/320266/58 "2005-09-10T20:36:27Z")
> [@Hung Mung](#): > > Are any of them NOT heartless, cynical, vindictive twats? Honestly, ANY single one of them? Og knows (or if he doesn’t, the folks here at SDMB do) that I don’t have a whole lot of good things to say about the Bush family. But I doubt that any of them is **personally** disdainful or indifferent toward poor people in general. The thing seems to be that they’re all just totally tone-deaf when it comes to talking about socioeconomic class, esp. about poor people. It sticks out a mile that they simply think of the wealthy as the social norm, and the working class (esp. the urban working class) as a sort of quaint little backwards tribe from Gujarat or Mars or somewhere. They’ve all said boneheaded stuff like this, apparently oblivious to how clueless and elitist it makes them look. Remember Bush I campaigning in Iowa in 1987, when he speculatively [explained](http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:R7s93zVw8gAJ:www.tarpley.net/bush22.htm+Bush+primary+daughters+coming-out+parties&hl=en) the poor turnout of his supporters at a Republican primary candidates’ rally? _“A lot of people that support me, they were off at the air show, they were at their daughters’ coming out parties, or teeing up at the golf course for that all-important last round.”_ Right, that’s the way to position yourself as a true voters’ candidate with broad popular appeal: suggest that a large bloc of your supporters throw debutante cotillions for their daughters, for Og’s sake. What percentage of Iowa voters, even among Republicans, have ever even **seen** a debutantes’ coming-out party? And then there’s Bush II, joking about how his [“elite” political base](http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blbushism-elite.htm) consists of “the haves and the have-mores.” And offering up as a candidate for sympathy in the post-Katrina devastation Senator Trent Lott, whose [Louisiana beach house was destroyed](http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/09/20050902-2.html)—“He’s lost his entire house”. Gee, that really brings home the human tragedy of it all, don’t it? Now we get Ex-First-Lady Bar chirping that a devastating natural disaster wiping out homes and other assets is working out pretty well for the refugees, because “they were underprivileged anyway”. Just more elitist burbling from inside the Bush Bubble. No, I honestly don’t think that any of them is genuinely heartless. They simply do not have a fucking clue what it’s actually like not to be rich. In other words, the percentage of the population that’s actually real to them is the 10–20% who can afford beach houses and attend debutante cotillions and make up the “haves” and the “have-mores”. Is it any wonder that these are the people they’re running the country for? ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-bush-sees-the-bright-side/320266/59 "2005-09-11T04:51:05Z")
> [@Hentor the Barbarian](#): > > The apple does not fall far from the tree. And the cracker does not fall far from the box. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-bush-sees-the-bright-side/320266/60 "2005-09-11T04:59:28Z")
Pip pip, **Kimstu** Good show, that. Mildly disappointed you left out my personal favorite, the elders Bush’s wonder and amazment at the high technology of the grocery check out lane. 'Cause he was unfamiliar with the exotic ritual we call “buying the goddam groceries”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-bush-sees-the-bright-side/320266.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/barbara-bush-sees-the-bright-side/320266.md?page=4)