BUSH: “I’ll bet I’ve shed more tears than you can count as president.”

[kpete]

In Book, Bush Peeks Ahead to His Legacy

“I’ve been here too long,” Mr. Bush said, according to Mr. Draper. “Every time I start painting a rosy picture, it gets criticized and then it doesn’t make it on the news.”

By JIM RUTENBERG
Published: September 2, 2007

Telling Mr. Draper he likes to keep things “relatively light-hearted” around the White House, he added in May, “I can’t let my own worries — I try not to wear my worries on my sleeve; I don’t want to burden them with that.”

“Self-pity is the worst thing that can happen to a presidency,” Mr. Bush told Mr. Draper, by way of saying he sought to avoid it. “This is a job where you can have a lot of self-pity.”

..................

And in apparent reference to the invasion of Iraq, he continued, “This group-think of ‘we all sat around and decided’ — there’s only one person that can decide, and that’s the president.”

...............

In response to Mr. Draper’s observance that Mr. Bush had nobody’s “shoulder to cry on,” the president said: “Of course I do, I’ve got God’s shoulder to cry on, and I cry a lot.” In what Mr. Draper interpreted as a reference to war casualties, Mr. Bush added, “I’ll bet I’ve shed more tears than you can count as president.”

more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/washington/02book.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5090&en=964160bd7f79ae92&ex=1346385600&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

[Pale Blue Dot]

1. If it's more than 10, it's more than he can count.

Unless he takes off his shoes.

[tekisui]

20. he should be crying in prison.

[Skidmore]

2. Poor little man, no one likes his pictures.

Someone take his crayons away.

[liberal N proud]

3. Shedding tears for all the wrong reasons

He sheds tears because we criticize his screwed up politics when he should be crying over all the dead bodies he has piled up.

[Lisa]

31. well, of course! It's all about him!

You are absolutely right, liberal N proud. Of course he would never see it this way in a million years.

[mcscajun]

4. He is absolutely right: “I’ve been here too long,” Mr. Bush said...

Yup. Too Long. Too Damned Long. A whole lot of too many dead soldiers too long. A whole lot of too many dead Iraqi civilians too long. Too long for the people and cities of New Orleans and Gulfport, too long for the nation's economy, for public civility, for the integrity of the constitution.

Too Long.

[Solly Mack]

5. Am I supposed to read this and pity the lone decider who carries such burdens on his shoulders?

'Cause well...LMAO

He's a war criminal - and every day America pretends he is anything else is another day America enables Bush's crimes.

And every single day Bush is in office is a day America pretends Bush isn't a war criminal

Yeah, yeah...the so-called land of the free and the home of the brave, whose presidential elections are heralded as a bloodless change of power in a system of government designed to promote democracy and liberty and justice (snicker)...doesn't have the votes to remove a war criminal executive...I get it. (Boy, do I get it)

Future generations will be just so proud of us.

[Hubert Flottz]

15. He's the deciever more than the decider.

Nobody in America still believes a word that fool says but a few Morans! And that number drops every day too just like his poll numbers have been doing. He insults Americans by expecting us to be stupid enough to still believe a single word he has to say. The Deciever is truly the American Nightmare! The GOP created a total monster...why do they hate freedom and liberty?

[Solly Mack]

18. True..he is a deceiver

[Richard Steele]

6. Who in the hell actually believes this nonsense? What utter drek. nm

[rodeodance]

7. Bush refers to Hadley regarding some of major war decisions"--Bush does not recall.

.....Mr. Bush acknowledged one major failing of the early occupation of Iraq when he said of disbanding the Saddam Hussein-era military, “The policy was to keep the army intact; didn’t happen.”

But when Mr. Draper pointed out that Mr. Bush’s former Iraq administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, had gone ahead and forced the army’s dissolution and then asked Mr. Bush how he reacted to that, Mr. Bush said, “Yeah, I can’t remember, I’m sure I said, ‘This is the policy, what happened?’ ” But, he added, “Again, Hadley’s got notes on all of this stuff,” referring to Stephen J. Hadley, his national security adviser.

Mr. Bush said he believed that Mr. Hussein did not take his threats of war seriously, suggesting that the United Nations emboldened him by failing to follow up on an initial resolution demanding that Iraq disarm. He had sought a second measure containing an ultimatum that failure to comply would result in war.

“One interesting question historians are going to have to answer is: Would Saddam have behaved differently if he hadn’t gotten mixed signals between the first resolution and the failure of the second resolution?” Mr. Bush said. “I can’t answer that question. I was hopeful that diplomacy would work.”

[RC]

14. bu$h does NOT believe diplomacy has a place in foreign policy

"...I was hopeful that diplomacy would work.”

Yeah, sure. All this administration knows is "My way or the highway." The reality of any particular situation is of little concern to them. It is always the end that they want that counts.

[karynnj]

41. I guess he fordot that he dropped the call for the second resolution

because he would lose and met on some island with Blair and the Spanish leader - declaring the 3 of them to be enough.

[malaise]

8. Fuck Bush n/t

[soothsayer]

9. welll I sure have, since he's been pResident

[mwb970]

10. Americans shed tears every day over what this cretin has done.

Aww. Poor, poor little Georgie, cwying himself to sleep on his flannel pillow, blissfully unaware of the pain and destruction he has caused with each of his un-American, inhuman actions.

What a pathetic POS.

[Arkansas Granny]

19. I think Bush is totally aware of the pain and destruction he has

caused. I think he either blissfully does not give a shit or he actually gets off on it. If he's shedding any tears (other than the crocodile tears that he uses in public to appear somewhat human), it's not over the terrible losses connected to the Iraq war that he so badly wanted to wage.

[SammyWinstonJack]

33. I think he doesn't give a shit AND gets off on it.

[tanyev]

11. Aww. The lacerates are running down his cheeks.

Won't someone give the poor man a hanky?

[Lisa]

30. Perfect!

(you've really done your homework on this guy!)

[tom_paine]

12. I swear to God his grotesqueries rival Hitler's cries of "We Only Want Peace!"

And I just wonder how many Nazi Propaganda pieces, when they warranted, showed the "sensitive side of Der Fuhrer"?

Many and many, no doubt.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

13. there was that ouchie on my bike. another on the segway, another bike,

then I was jogging and I fell. And then the pretzel thingie. that big bad nasty needle for Lymes, yup I've shredded a lots of tear.

[rasputin1952]

16. bush is a sociopath, he does not possess the ability to

comprehend that what he has done is wrong on several levels; not just in the Middle East, but throughout his reign in the WH...well actually, throughout his entire life.

Although it is painfully evident that those who are "born of privilege" generally lack empathy to how others live, with the sociopath, it becomes disastrous. bush is no TR, he has never willfully walked among those who actually work for a living or are destitute. TR made it a point during his stint as NYC's Police Commissioner to go into areas of poverty and disease, he saw first hand how the Robber Barons had taken away hope from those who needed it most. He knew disease and squalor were not "normal" in a society, but rather, it was the suppression of the human spirit and the necessity to eke out a survival, that created such an environment...hence his struggle against them. Although TR gained more wealth under the Robber Baron mentality, he knew it left little more than destruction for those not in that circle.

bush could not care less about anything except for the gain of more material wealth and power. He has deluded himself into believing that his thought process is the only "correct one", and surrounded himself w/people who bolster that notion. Now that the "Texas Cabal" is essentially gone, he no longer has his faithful followers telling him o that his "decisions are somehow "divine".

If bush ever wept, he wept only for personal loss. He has never shed a tear for those who have sacrificed life and limb; he has never shed a tear for the calamity he has brought upon the nation; he is incapable of normal human emotions. He views that as a "'strength", but the reality is, it shows a weak and confused individual he truly is. Without constant shoring up of his warped beliefs by those he surrounded himself with, he realizes he is an empty shell of a man.

[SalmonChantedEvening]

17. I can count to ZERO Dubya n/t

[radfringe]

21. ohhh, now I know what the "W" stands for

Weepy

[JTFrog]

22. Tears of laughter I'm sure.

:eyes:

[CBHagman]

23. Perhaps the most bizarre passages in the article.

Hold on to your barf bags, people, and try to deal with the following snippets:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/washington/02book.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5090&en=964160bd7f79ae92&ex=1346385600&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Bush's post-presidency plans:

First, Mr. Bush said, “I’ll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol’ coffers.” With assets that have been estimated as high as nearly $21 million, Mr. Bush added, “I don’t know what my dad gets — it’s more than 50-75” thousand dollars a speech, and “Clinton’s making a lot of money.”

Then he said, “We’ll have a nice place in Dallas,” where he will be running what he called “a fantastic Freedom Institute” promoting democracy around the world.

It seems one is counting one's chickens prematurely, and don't even get me started on the oxymoronic concept of George W.Bush freedom institute. An autocratic institute might be more the thing.

A little more on Bush's personality:

Sitting in an anteroom of the Oval Office, he eschewed the more formal White House menu for comfort food — a low-fat hotdog and ice cream — and bitingly told an aide who peeked in on the session that his time with Mr. Draper was “worthless anyway.”

Is he unable to control his impulse to use putdowns with everyone?

Then there's this:

“I made a decision to lead,” he said, “One, it makes you unpopular; two, it makes people accuse you of unilateral arrogance, and that may be true. But the fundamental question is, is the world better off as a result of your leadership?”

Oh, and the title of the fortcoming book for which this interview took place? Dead Certain.

[MilesColtrane]

29. I hate these Republican douchebags,

...always reminding us that they're doing us a favor running the country into the ground. What a huge financial burden it is to be employed by the government.

Jesus.

My guess is that Bush isn't stroking himself over his upcoming financial windfall so much that he won't take one last, enormous dump on the world before he leaves office.

"Fuck Iran!! Now where's that nukular football thingy at?"

[Glimmer of Hope]

45. Freedom Institute? Delusional freak!

[Lisa]

54. he just can't get over the Clinton envy, can he ...

Clinton can fill sports stadiums in OTHER COUNTRIES, more than 5 years after leaving office. (That's what happened in my city last year.) Really, I can't imagine anyone wanting to hear Bush trotting out mean-spirited jokes and twisted rationales for his terrible decisions -- unless we were allowed to bring rotten fruit and throw it.

[frustrated_lefty]

24. Add those crocodile tears to the waters in New Orleans

[elehhhhna]

25. So, drunks cry a lot. This is news?

LOL

[peekaloo]

26. Tears of an Assclown. nt.

[baby_mouse]

27. Weep. Hug. Decide. Hope. The days are just packed.

Just not with anything that has anything to do with anyone else, eh, George?

[Myrina]

28. ... he only cries after naps, and when he can't get his shoes tied ...

... c'mon Georgie, we all know by now, you have no soul ~ :evilfrown:

[graywarrior]

32. C'mere asshole. I'll give you something to cry about.

[KoKo]

34. Reading the Whole Article...I'm glad that just a "snip" was posted

I started barfing in the middle of the NYT's Link repeating what that Pshychophant Draper reported to to "NYT" Ruttenberg that got reported.

:puke: The guy's an Idiot!

[Disturbed]

35. The Silver Spoon Sociopath cries over his failures.

This AssClown is pathetic.

[Doctor_J]

36. If he cries (highly doubtful), it's because he fucked up his last chance

to be seen as something besides a stupid, drunken reprobate. This "presidency" is just his arrests, abortions, drunken frat-boy excursions, cocaine abuse, and sloth performed on a stage where millions of people have to pay the price.

There isn't humiliation deep enough for him and Cheney and the rest of the 4th Reich

[opihimoimoi]

37. Tears??? WE WANT SOLUTIONS that WORK....is that so awful?

Instead...Bush/GOP PRETEND


While the DEMOCRATS DELIVER....

[Swamp Rat]

38. sure you do

[Orsino]

39. "[T]ell the Dauphin...

...His jest will savor but of shallow wit,
When thousands weep more than did laugh at it."

[kiki]

40. That's not what "group-think" means, you stupid fuck.

Actually, "group-think" is the phenomena whereby a group of people become convinced of the rightness of an absurd or irrational idea, often at the instigation of a single member of the group, and reinforce each other's belief in that idea despite its obvious and demonstrable absurdity or irrationality.

But I guess right-wingers wouldn't know anything about that...

[Skittles]

42. what a sanctimonious, pathetic PIECE OF SHIT

:puke:

[paparush]

43. Laura said no one had suffered more during this war than she and George...

what unbelievable hubris.

[spanone]

44. bu$h* & legacy = oxymoron

[Cha]

46. Fuck off, buSHIT.. go read your

pet goat.

[Blashyrkh]

47. I know that I could conceivably count to at least 1 quadrillion

1,000,000,000,000,000 or 999,999,999,999,999 trillion plus 1.

I call bullshit. In fact, I call uberbullshit. In fact, I call so much bullshit that even bulls would be saying "damn, that's bullshit".

[Oeditpus Rex]

48. Makes me think of an old Crown Royal ad

that showed a picture of a broken bottle with the caption, "Have you ever seen a grown man cry?"

[windoe]

49. coke its the real thing

What do we expect from someone who snorted topical anesthetic until he was 40--numbness.

[Doctor_J]

50. One of our intrepid White House Press Corpse could put an end

to this bullshit post haste. Next time the Village Idiot takes questions, just ask him to name 5 of the soldiers who have been killed in his war. He'd start to sweat and stutter and then curse, and the jig would be up on this phony "I'm taking this hard" act.

Edit: I bet John Kerry could name EVERY Massachusettes casualty.

[Obamarama]

51. "The lacerates ran down his cheeks..."

At Phillips Academy in Andover, Bush flunked his first English essay. The teacher called it ''disgraceful.'' Reaching for a new way to write about his tears over the death of his sister Robin, Bush wrote, ''and the lacerates ran down my cheeks.''

http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0620-01.htm

[treestar]

52. Replenish the coffers?

This moran makes me :puke:

[Warren DeMontague]

53. Maudlin, drunk tears, the kind he gets while watching "Benji" on his 4th bottle of scotch.

But they're tears, durrrrmit!

[Major Hogwash]

55. I'll take that bet.

And double down that he sleeps well at night, too.