Where has this been all along?

This video of President Bush pushing back against MSM idiocy on the war is solid. If only he could show these colors more often.



Hat Tip: Hot Air

Bush Against Romney Because of Immigration?

Robert Novak reports that President Bush won’t support Mitt Romney because he changed his mind about the amnesty bill.

While President George W. Bush has maintained neutrality among contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, he privately expresses to friends his exasperation with Mitt Romney's hard-line stance on immigration.

Bush is upset that Romney changed his position on the issue, compared to what it had been when he was governor of Massachusetts, at the expense of the president's immigration reform. Bush and Sen. John McCain are not close, but the president is grateful for McCain's support on Iraq and immigration.

A footnote: The president's younger brother, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, has not endorsed any presidential candidate. But he and his political allies were behind Romney's losing effort in last Tuesday's Florida primary.

I'm so mad I don't know what to say. This is outrageous! I hope people vote for Romney purely out of spite.

The Bush Legacy: A Fractured Party

Peggy Noonan wrote a bold column in the Wall Street Journal this week in which she accused President Bush of destroying the Republican Party.

On the pundit civil wars, Rush Limbaugh declared on the radio this week, "I'm here to tell you, if either of these two guys [Mr. McCain or Mike Huckabee] get the nomination, it's going to destroy the Republican Party. It's going to change it forever, be the end of it!"

This is absurd. George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party, by which I mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against each other. He did this on spending, the size of government, war, the ability to prosecute war, immigration and other issues.

Were there other causes? Yes, of course. But there was an immediate and essential cause.

And this needs saying, because if you don't know what broke the elephant you can't put it together again. The party cannot re-find itself if it can't trace back the moment at which it became lost. It cannot heal an illness whose origin is kept obscure.

I believe that some of the ferocity of the pundit wars is due to a certain amount of self-censorship. It's not in human nature to enjoy self-censorship. The truth will out, like steam from a kettle. It hurts to say something you supported didn't work. I would know. But I would say of these men (why, in the continuing age of Bill Clinton, does the emoting come from the men?) who are fighting one another as they resist naming the cause for the fight: Sack up, get serious, define. That's the way to help.

Noonan's observation was tough to read -- tough because it rings true. The President has compromised conservative values time and again to pass legacy-building legislation. Now these decisions have fractured the Republican coalition and compromised the President's legacy.

Is this supposed to make us like her?

This was funny (and original) when George W. Bush did it in 1999.