Bush's self-legacy: 'Did not sell his soul'

[DogPoundPup]

Posted November 28, 2008 9:15 AM
The Swamp

by Mark Silva

President Bush usually is reluctant to talk about his own legacy, suggesting that historians will sort all of that out long after he is gone. But suddenly, with a chance to create his own entry in the archives of the Library of Congress, Bush sees a very clear legacy in his own mind.

The retiring leader, a born-again Christian who says he has "been in the Bible every day since I've been the president,'' declares that he is proud of something his father, too, can declare: They have not sold their souls.

Now, as interviewers go, you've got your Barbara Walters and a certain expectation about the questions that are likely to come your way. And if you're sitting in the Bush White House, you're more likely to steer clear of Keith Olbermann and perhaps opt for Sean Hannity.

But this one's in a class by itself: Doro Bush Koch, the president's sister, interviewing President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush for StoryCorps, the national oral history initiative, headed for the archives of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.

The interview was held Nov. 12 in the White House residence, a week after elections that handed power to the Democratic Party - to President-elect Barack Obama --and an excerpt aired yesterday on National Public Radio as a run-up to today's StoryCorps "National Day of Listening.''

Listen to what Bush had to say of his legacy:

"How do you want to be remembered,'' sister Doro asked the president, "and what are you most proud of?

"I would like to be a person remembered as a person who, first and foremost, did not sell his soul in order to accommodate the political process. I came to Washington with a set of values, and I'm leaving with the same set of values. And I darn sure wasn't going to sacrifice those values; that I was a president that had to make tough choices and was willing to make them. I surrounded myself with good people. I carefully considered the advice of smart, capable people and made tough decisions.
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/11/bushs_selflegacy_did_not_sell.html

:wow: :wtf:

[SpiralHawk]

1. "I didn't need to sell it. I was born into the Skull & Boners." - Commander AWOL

[Xipe Totec]

2. That's how he would like to be remembered

I would like to be remembered as the richest man who ever lived, but that's not going to happen either.

[Frustratedlady]

3. You can't sell what you don't have...

He wouldn't know his soul if he tripped over it.

How many more days?

[Vanje]

5. 53 more days nt

[BlueMTexpat]

7. My reaction exactly!

Were we perhaps separated at birth? :pals:

[Th1onein]

4. He is an ignorant, selfish, arrogant jerk.

No Child Left Behind was all about privatizing the testing in the schools, and forcing them to buy tests and other materials from private companies. He has nothing to be proud of here.

He's one of Milton Friedman's Chicago Boys, when it comes to governing. And, like the rest of that group, he's an utter failure.

What's Bush's legacy? UNMITIGATED FAILURE ACROSS THE SPECTRUM

[Frustratedlady]

10. He was also trying to promote private schools and force out public.

They hate public schools and there are a lot of private schools (prisons, too, I see) in Texas. Some of those schools were caught cheating on the NCLB testing. I don't know what happened to them.

Our children have lost 8 years of education since he took over. How sad. It was almost as if he was trying to dumb down the children to match his own lack of abilities.

What really burns me is that we let him get by with it.

[geckosfeet]

6. Ahh. A primary trait of thoughtful people - flexibility.

[snake in the grass]

8. Yet another Bush lie!

[NRaleighLiberal]

9. His soul could be listed on ebay for 1 cent and no one would bid.

[Hawkowl]

11. Can the devil sell his soul?

Seriously, can someone with zero compassion and a personality composed almost exclusively of greed, cruelty, and a sadistic delight in death and torture ever have had a soul?

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. He didn't have to sell his soul. He was born the anti-christ.

[liam_laddie]

13. Boosh 43

is so completely delusional, out-of-it, in an alcoholic haze...whatever term fits...that he is absolutely incapable of self-examination. His type is typical of all the extreme right-wing ideologues...totally self-absorbed, sociopathic ASSHOLES! Eight years of these fuckers have been a disaster for our country. One hopes and/or prays that President-elect Obama and his team can right our severely-listing ship-of-state.

[olegramps]

14. Bush believes that his mission is divinely ordained

Bush is synonymous with the religious fanatic in his dedication, zeal and obstinacy. He is basically a zealot who has been converted by the neo-cons to a vision of converting basically theocratic orientated societies in the Middle East to democratic pro-western nations.

He is convinced, just like the religious zealot who is out to convert the world, that he and his cadre of like minded PNAC neo-cons is on a divinely inspired mission to bring democracy to the masses. The most serious problem with zealots is that they are incapable of objectively appraising the situation before fully committing themselves to the most unreasonable goals. Any task can be achieved; it only requires total and complete commitment. Anyone who doesn't share their vision is not only unpatriotic but immoral and enemies of the true Christians. Sarah Palin is a prime example of a zealot who believes that only those Americans who agree with her extreme religious doctrines are real Americans. The others are not only un-American, but immoral enemies of God fearing religious real Americans. It is a message of hated and division as old as mankind.

Most importantly, zealots believe that their holy mission is such utmost importance that they can employ any means to achieve it regardless if these practices are considered, under normal circumstances, to be immoral. This explains how Bush, Cheney and their henchmen, all calming to be born again Christians, can justify the use of ghastly means of torture and illegal imprisonment. They, like the Inquisitors of old, are on a God ordained mission that justifies all.

The committed zealot is incapable of abandoning their goal and accepting that their objective is unreasonable and most importantly, unattainable. Failure is wholly unacceptable and anyone who doesn't support them in whatever misadventure they have committed themselves to is an enemy. This is to me the greatest threat to our safety and well being, because their goal becomes such an obsession that the needs of the nation can be totally sacrificed in pursuit of preposterous misadventures bring it to the brink of ruin.

[bemildred]

15. So, he got some offers for it? nt

[lame54]

16. Doesn't have it to sell...

He lost it years ago in a drunken poker game