# I'm gobsmacked...I feel sorry for George Bush! (pit due to political aspect)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-gobsmacked-i-feel-sorry-for-george-bush-pit-due-to-political-aspect/496771
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [May 17, 2009, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-gobsmacked-i-feel-sorry-for-george-bush-pit-due-to-political-aspect/496771 "2009-05-17T19:06:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2009, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-gobsmacked-i-feel-sorry-for-george-bush-pit-due-to-political-aspect/496771/1 "2009-05-17T19:06:50Z")
I shock the shit outta myself sometimes.
I got two pages into [this](http://www.newsweek.com/id/197811/page/1) article about George Bush and what he’s doing these days, and I found myself getting all choked up with sympathy for him.
:eek:
I think it’s partly because of the recent chatter about how he’s really pissed off at Cheney because he blames Cheney for the mess that was his hideously bad presidency. And it seems that he really did live in a bizarre little bubble the last eight years, he really is the empty, sad, little suit that was being told what to do every day by far more nefarious people, such as Cheney. I’ll never, ever, ever forget, in his first year in office, a new special that showed him in Crawford, and he was showing them his office, that had nothing on his desk but a phone; he looked at the camera and made a remark that was so pathetic, something along the lines of: “There’s my phone, that I use to call other world leaders…” like a child getting to play the world’s biggest game of pretend.
From the beginning of the article:
> [@](#):
>
> Patrick Bibb, a 19-year-old from Dallas, glanced at his cell phone. …
>
> His caller ID read withheld. He decided not to answer. When class ended, he checked his messages and found that George W. Bush had been trying to reach him.
>
> The sophomore listened to the voice mail. He heard the former president of the United States thank him at least four times. Bush was happy that the teenager had been selling welcome home george & laura signs for $20 to people all over Bush’s neighborhood in Texas. “I hope this message is sufficient” to show appreciation, Bibb heard Bush say. Bibb dutifully listened, hung up and went to his other classes.
>
> He settled into accounting class. His phone rang again. Bibb decided to pick up. “Excuse me, I need to go to talk to the president,” Bibb wisecracked to a pal as he left the room. It was Bush again.
>
> He began thanking Bibb, repeatedly, for making the signs. ☹ Bibb listened patiently. He didn’t mean to be rude, but he finally said: “I’m really sorry, Mr. President. I’m in the middle of class.” He needed to get off the phone. Bush replied: “No problem, that’s where you’re supposed to be.”
>
> Weeks later, the undergraduate was still wondering about his chat with the man who, only a short time ago, was arguably the most powerful man on the planet. “I had just wanted him to know that people still cared about him, despite the public-opinion polls,” says Bibb.
>
> Bibb’s not the only one. Molly Vilbig, who lives nearby, believes Bush had gotten word that her grandson had once tried, at the tender age of 6, to donate $1 to the first Bush for President campaign. That’s why, Vilbig suspects, the ex-president called and invited the 14-year-old to come over. Under the watchful eye of Secret Service agents,:rolleyes: the boy walked to Bush’s home. The two settled into chairs in the backyard. “Ask me anything you want,” Bush said to the boy, according to the grandmother.
>
> They spent 90 minutes together.
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### Author:  [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2009, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-gobsmacked-i-feel-sorry-for-george-bush-pit-due-to-political-aspect/496771/2 "2009-05-17T19:38:31Z")
George Bush has a private ranch… and he’s inviting 14-year old boys there to spend time with him.
I swear I’ve heard this story somewhere before…
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2009, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-gobsmacked-i-feel-sorry-for-george-bush-pit-due-to-political-aspect/496771/3 "2009-05-17T19:50:40Z")
Well, I hated him with a passion when he was in office. But it has to be hard to go from being POTUS, with Marine One fluttering down to a landing in your backyard, with a lantern-jawed uniformed officer just outside the door with the nuclear “football,” with a staff of hundreds waiting to do your bidding, to… puttering around the house in your bathrobe, annoying your wife, with nothing more pressing on your schedule than lunch at the club. There was a line in _Amistad_, about Martin van Buren losing the election of 1840 IIRC: “Is there anything more pathetic than an ex-President?”
I can’t say I feel sorry for him, given the many lives lost and ruined due to his amazingly bad decisions, but I am just a teeny weeny little bit… sympathetic, let’s say, to him for the sense of dislocation he must be feeling.
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### Author:  [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2009, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-gobsmacked-i-feel-sorry-for-george-bush-pit-due-to-political-aspect/496771/4 "2009-05-17T20:01:41Z")
Fuck him and fuck Nixon.
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### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2009, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-gobsmacked-i-feel-sorry-for-george-bush-pit-due-to-political-aspect/496771/5 "2009-05-17T20:15:11Z")
He doesn’t sound that bad off. And this:
> [@](#):
>
> Texas today is different from the heady place it was when Bush left. Unemployment is rising, and deepening recessions are predicted for some urban areas.
Boo hoo. I know a HELL of a lot of peole much worse off than him. In the words of Dick Cheney, I say to Bush: “Go fuck yourself.”
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### Author:  [@AdmiralCrunch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AdmiralCrunch)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2009, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-gobsmacked-i-feel-sorry-for-george-bush-pit-due-to-political-aspect/496771/6 "2009-05-17T20:27:46Z")
Don’t feel too sorry, he deserves every bit of it. Actually, he deserves a hell of a lot more. Actually, he never deserved anything he’s ever gotten in life, and this minor inconvenience of being a terrible president will never reach parity with what he’s received.
That being said, I’m glad the predominant narrative is shifting from “Bush is evil” to “Bush got promoted past his capability and didn’t have the character to deal with difficult circumstances.” It’s more accurate.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2009, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-gobsmacked-i-feel-sorry-for-george-bush-pit-due-to-political-aspect/496771/7 "2009-05-17T20:48:05Z")
To quote some country-singing woman: “My give-a-damn’s busted.”
ETA: Maybe when he’s standing in the docket at the Hague, or occupying a cell afterward.
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### Author:  [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2009, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-gobsmacked-i-feel-sorry-for-george-bush-pit-due-to-political-aspect/496771/8 "2009-05-17T20:50:19Z")
> [@AdmiralCrunch](#):
>
> That being said, I’m glad the predominant narrative is shifting from “Bush is evil” to “Bush got promoted past his capability and didn’t have the character to deal with difficult circumstances.” It’s more accurate.
Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from actual malice. He got promoted, my arse: he actively sought out and fought for a job, possibly the most responsible job in the world, that he was woefully unsuited to do. If I fight to become CEO of Microsoft based on no experience and then run it into the ground, I can’t turn around and whine “I didn’t know it was gonna be this hard”.
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### Author:  [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2009, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-gobsmacked-i-feel-sorry-for-george-bush-pit-due-to-political-aspect/496771/9 "2009-05-17T21:13:51Z")
> [@Stoid](#):
>
> I shock the shit outta myself sometimes.
>
> I got two pages into [this](http://www.newsweek.com/id/197811/page/1) article about George Bush and what he’s doing these days, and I found myself getting all choked up with sympathy for him.
> :eek:
>
> I think it’s partly because of the recent chatter about how he’s really pissed off at Cheney because he blames Cheney for the mess that was his hideously bad presidency. And it seems that he really did live in a bizarre little bubble the last eight years, he really is the empty, sad, little suit that was being told what to do every day by far more nefarious people, such as Cheney. I’ll never, ever, ever forget, in his first year in office, a new special that showed him in Crawford, and he was showing them his office, that had nothing on his desk but a phone; he looked at the camera and made a remark that was so pathetic, something along the lines of: “There’s my phone, that I use to call other world leaders…” like a child getting to play the world’s biggest game of pretend.
>
> From the beginning of the article:
Yeah, but he picked Cheney, and he outranked Cheney. At any point Bush would have been absolutely within his power to stop listening to the VP and even pressure him to resign. If you decide to run for President and decide to just blindly follow your arguably-criminal handlers, then that’s still your decision, and you need to take responsibility.
If he wants more attention and is feeling neglected, he could always step up and publicly hold himself accountable for what he did. He could go ahead and publicly admit that his administration, under his guidance, abused illegally-held prisoners to try to find a link between Iraq and al-Queda, in order to support one of his two pointless, stupid wars. He could say that the government should stop listening in on phone conversations without so much as a warrant. There’s any number of things he could to do get himself back into the spotlight. If he doesn’t want to? Well, he can fade away in anonymity.
Of course, we as a nation could also step up and try to force him to be held accountable, but that sure as hell isn’t going to happen, because everyone’s too worried about their investment portfolio.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2009, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-gobsmacked-i-feel-sorry-for-george-bush-pit-due-to-political-aspect/496771/10 "2009-05-17T21:19:25Z")
> [@NinjaChick](#):
>
> Yeah, but he picked Cheney, and he outranked Cheney.
That’s a [del]debateable[/del] dubious assertion.
Does anyone know how Cheney came to be the man tasked with finding Bush’s running mate?
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### Author:  [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2009, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-gobsmacked-i-feel-sorry-for-george-bush-pit-due-to-political-aspect/496771/11 "2009-05-17T21:29:44Z")
> [@NinjaChick](#):
>
> If he wants more attention and is feeling neglected, he could always step up and publicly hold himself accountable for what he did. He could go ahead and publicly admit that his administration, under his guidance, abused illegally-held prisoners to try to find a link between Iraq and al-Queda, in order to support one of his two pointless, stupid wars. He could say that the government should stop listening in on phone conversations without so much as a warrant. There’s any number of things he could to do get himself back into the spotlight. If he doesn’t want to? Well, he can fade away in anonymity.
Or maybe he could call up a few parents of teenagers who were killed in Iraq. I’m sure they’d love to hear about how how hard he’s got it. For some variety, maybe he could talk to a ten-year-old whose mother got blown away by an IED. That’ll end his malaise _real_ quick.
If I wound up getting a whole bunch of soldiers killed because of my fuckups, I’d avoid the public eye too. As a conservative and a military (non-combat) vet, I say fuck him and his whole cabinet. He can stick that phone up his small intestine.
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### Author:  [@Proudest\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Proudest_Monkey)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2009, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-gobsmacked-i-feel-sorry-for-george-bush-pit-due-to-political-aspect/496771/12 "2009-05-17T21:43:18Z")
The fact that the president succeeding him – and his party – was swept into office on the hopes of (at least partly) “change” has to bring a measure of sting too.
It’s not just that America was moving on and leaving his presidency behind, it’s that America vociferously clamored for a different direction. If Bush has the mental and personal fortitude to reflect on his years in office, the decisions he made, and the state of the nation when his term ended, he must ask why that is the case.
Do I think he can or will?
Er, no.
And as much as it roiled my stomach to see his stupid, smarmy, frat-boy face representing my country for 8 years, yeah, I do feel a bit of sympathy for him.
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2009, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-gobsmacked-i-feel-sorry-for-george-bush-pit-due-to-political-aspect/496771/13 "2009-05-17T21:48:40Z")
> [@Linty\_Fresh](#):
>
> **Or maybe he could call up a few parents of teenagers who were killed in Iraq.** I’m sure they’d love to hear about how how hard he’s got it. For some variety, maybe he could talk to a ten-year-old whose mother got blown away by an IED. That’ll end his malaise _real_ quick.
Wouldn’t help, remember he already [hurts more than they do](http://www.americablog.com/2007/04/laura-bush-wants-you-to-know-that-when.html).
Fuck him and Laura ,too.
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### Author:  [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2009, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-gobsmacked-i-feel-sorry-for-george-bush-pit-due-to-political-aspect/496771/14 "2009-05-17T21:58:00Z")
> [@Scissorjack](#):
>
> Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from actual malice.
Larry Niven?
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### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2009, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-gobsmacked-i-feel-sorry-for-george-bush-pit-due-to-political-aspect/496771/15 "2009-05-17T22:06:44Z")
I don’t sympathize, but I do pity him. (I consider the two different – sympathy, for me, is being able to imagine myself in the other’s shoes, and feeling genuinely sorry. Pity, on the other hand, is feeling sorry for someone – only with an added element of contempt.) Does that make sense.
It’s no one’s fault but his.
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### Author:  [@Carol\_Stream](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carol_Stream)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2009, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-gobsmacked-i-feel-sorry-for-george-bush-pit-due-to-political-aspect/496771/16 "2009-05-17T22:09:40Z")
> [@NinjaChick](#):
>
> in order to support one of his two pointless, stupid wars.
What was pointless and stupid about the war in Afghanistan?
And if it is pointless and stupid, why is President Obama ramping it up again?
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### Author:  [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2009, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-gobsmacked-i-feel-sorry-for-george-bush-pit-due-to-political-aspect/496771/17 "2009-05-17T22:11:25Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#):
>
> I don’t sympathize, but I do pity him. (I consider the two different – sympathy, for me, is being able to imagine myself in the other’s shoes, and feeling genuinely sorry. Pity, on the other hand, is feeling sorry for someone – only with an added element of contempt.) Does that make sense.
>
> It’s no one’s fault but his.
Ok. This is actually how I feel.
Cheney and Rove? Unadulterated straight-up contempt.
---
### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2009, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-gobsmacked-i-feel-sorry-for-george-bush-pit-due-to-political-aspect/496771/18 "2009-05-17T22:25:39Z")
> [@Squink](#):
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > Originally Posted by **Scissorjack**
> > Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from actual malice.
>
> Larry Niven?
Paraphrase of Arthur C. Clarke (substitute technology/magic for incompetence/malice).
I suppose it’s possible that Niven did actually use that paraphrase, but I never read it.
---
### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2009, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-gobsmacked-i-feel-sorry-for-george-bush-pit-due-to-political-aspect/496771/19 "2009-05-17T22:39:48Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#):
>
> George Bush has a private ranch… and he’s inviting 14-year old boys there to spend time with him.
>
> I swear I’ve heard this story somewhere before…
Strangely, though, with Dubya, there would be no creepy vibe to it. If W said he wanted to have a sleepover with a bunch of 12-year old boys, I would totally believe it was because he wanted to build forts and shoot BB guns with them.
As to the OP, I don’t feel sorry for him, but I no longer feel that much anger towards him either. I think he understands how poor his own legacy will be, and (maybe even worse from his perspective), how much the Bush name was devalued by his Presidency.
One thing I will give him him credit for is that since he’s left office, he’s made no attempt to stay on the political or public stage, ala Cheney and Rove, and he hasn’t badmouthed Obama. Basically he’s been almost totally silent and private – a Johnny Carson style retirement. I think there’s something graceful and dignified about that, even for one who was a historically subpar Chief Executive.
---
### Author:  [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2009, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-gobsmacked-i-feel-sorry-for-george-bush-pit-due-to-political-aspect/496771/20 "2009-05-17T23:07:46Z")
Half a million Iraqis are dead because he didn’t do his job and see that Cheney was lying to him about Iraq. Boo hoo. Our economy is even weaker than it would be without the credit default swap fiasco if it weren’t for W’s idiotic war without end.
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