I agree it’s unlikely that any President leaves the office without causing death and destruction. The big difference with Carter is what he’s done since leaving office. He set a standard for behavior that I haven’t seen in other members of the Presidents Club.
What bothers me is people are tripping over themselves to offer forgiveness without atonement. That just sends the message to truly horrible people that they can do what they like and not only be excused, but also offered unearned kindness and friendship.
War crimes is not in the “friendly disagreements” area.
That dude´s a national treasure.
“I may disagree with Jared Fogle’s choices in the realm of entertainment he chooses to view, but that’s no reason to be uncivil to him.”
Let’s say that Ellen got invited to a party in the Hamptons by one of her friends and when she arrived, she found out that her host’s plan was to have her spend the day with Matt Lauer. You know, just regular old rich-person fun stuff–go out on a boat together, maybe play some croquet, and then a nice conversation over a bottle of wine, that kind of thing.
Now, the two-part question for you:
First, do you honestly think that she would spend the day with Lauer (especially with cameras around) and/or tell everyone later how they’re actually friends and it’s important to be kind to people even if they have different views than you?
And second, if she did so, do you think it would be fair of people to criticize her for it?
ETA: I should be clear in advance, the point of the first question is to demonstrate that “be nice to everyone even if they have different views” is a disingenuous shield. What she actually means is that she doesn’t think Bush did anything all that bad that she isn’t willing to overlook.
See this is why I stay at home, so I’m not ever accused of hanging out with the wrong people. Or more likely, so they aren’t accused of hanging out with the wrong people.
That remix is crushing, and it’s criminal what they’re doing to try and quash it.
Hey, people defending Ellen? I get it. She’s likable. But she’s wrong on this. I mean, she’s right, in that we shouldn’t be unnecessarily hostile to people we disagree with. But she’s wrong, in that GWB is not merely someone with opposing views. There is a threshold over which civility to one person is hostility towards many others, intentional or not. Of course she’s free to do what she wants. That’s not the issue here. But that doesn’t exempt her from criticism. We aren’t saying she should have punched him in the face, or even strongly rebuked him to his face (well, I’m not, at least, can’t speak for others here.) Joking and laughing with objectively terrible people isn’t a good look, and defending your actions with feel-good bullshit is almost as bad.
I did read the rest of the post, but the fact that someone’s no longer actively able to hold the world hostage with the nuclear apocalypse doesn’t change their moral fiber to me and I don’t think I’d let him off the hook for not having the sense to ignore one of America’s classic supervillains.
I think one of the questions is, at this point is GWB helping or hurting? IMO, he’s helping. He voted blue in 2016, as far as I can tell so did his entire clan. That isn’t a great help, but it should be recognized as an assist. Don’t you think that as smart as she is, Ellen isn’t trying to parlay that into a more general revolt of R’s against Trump, beating around the bushes and shrubs? Anyways, I’m not going to convince anyone here. Let he who is without blemish cast the first stone.
Or, it could just be that ultra-wealthy people have more in common with other ultra-wealthy people, regardless of any purported ideological/moral differences, and she just isn’t all that bothered by anything he’s done.
The rich are different from you and me.
I will leave it to you as an exercise in civics to list the US presidents and their declarations of war.
Would that be better than reading a book? I don’t think that listing public declarations of war would really get to the heart of his rearmament of the military with enough nuanced historical context.
He didn’t preside over as much death as other presidents, but I don’t that makes him clean-handed with regard to casualties incurred from his statecraft.
Yeah. Clinton supported the Iraq war, and then led the charge to do the same thing in Libya as Secretary of State. Ellen was a staunch Clinton supporter, so I’m not sure why anyone would think she had a problem with mass murdering civilians. She might disagree with Bush about some things, but that’s not one of them.
When I see people taking her to task for this, the implication that their favorite politician isn’t equally culpable reeks of sanctimonious hypocrisy.
That is some straight up enlightened centrism. It is entirely possible to recognize that your “favorite politician” has serious flaws while not dumping everyone into the same bucket. It’s not even necessarily about being unfair to the Clintons & Obamas of the world, it’s about not minimizing what Bush did in an effort to make “both sides are just as bad” something other than tossed-off wisdom from a college sophomore.
Doesn’t thus prove the danger of erasing people?
Ellen was big, because she came out as a lesbian. But even that isn’t enough to prevent her being erased. She’s gone from Great to Bad, as of the reasons she was popular are no longer valid.
The thing about some if these stories is that I don’t know if people thought their responses to the story, or to the story of the story. “Heinlein was a fascist” says lots of people, but I don’t see that so I never know if people are repeating what they read, or reactung to the actual stories. I can find things to criticize in his books, which I love, but they aren’t the things that get talked about.
So I’m not sure we can judge things by comments in response to an article. It’s too easy to cause a group mind, or mob reaction, than to get a real sense of how people think. Comments that counter the main notion, like this one, may have more value, if only people think about it.
This is a minor story, but others that have appeared here seem willing to toss out good because of bad. But things aren’t binary. If Louis Riel here in Canada is seen as an awful person, then my relatives with him in Red River were the same. But I can’t get excited about erasing Sir John A MacDonald, prime minister at the time, like some want (they seem to be if European descent, I might have to think harder if natives were speaking out).
People build some up on pedestald, and then want to see them falk when something they don’t like happens.
This isn’t about not being critical, it’s about that more recent desire to erase someone if they falter. There may be good reason to those directly affected, but instead we see third parties wanting erasure.
This is exactly what I’ve been thinking throughout this entire thread. No way GW would have been sitting there yukking it up with some average nobody Jane from Pomona. Nor would Ellen.
Most people don’t think of wars in this way. They see it from a much “higher”, cleaner perspective. In general, civilian casualties are just a thing that happens - unless it is your civilians. I mean other than maybe the bombing of Dresden, almost no one says one word about German civilian casualties.
But if civilian deaths are the measure we use to determine who to associate with or not, then you can cross out nearly every US president and congress critter. Including Obama.
She isn’t erased. She still has an incredibly successful show. She is having a PR hiccup at this point. Ellen will be fine.
While I actually agree with a lot of the criticism leveled at Bush, I still don’t like the tribalism. The right loves tribalism. Us vs them. The nonredeemable other. The echo chamber of like minded people festering contempt. None of that can hope to get better unless people can find common ground.
