Hooey And Bunk

I think that Hooey and Bunk make nice nicknames for Stephen Hadley and Joshua Bolten.

From Two Advisers Reflect on Eight Years With Bush by Michael Abramowitz:

"One of the mythologies," Hadley said, "is that it was the vice president that somehow was pulling the strings on foreign policy in the first term and made it very ideologically driven and that somehow in the second term, the vice president's influence is in decline and, therefore, somehow the real Bush has come forward, and we have a more pragmatic foreign policy."

"That's just hooey -- it's just hooey," the ever-polite Hadley concluded, with the strongest language he would muster for print. (Bolten chuckled and suggested earthier epithets, such as "bunk.")

Bolten thinks that Bush is “a good decision maker.” Bolton said that it is his job to make sure that the president is “well positioned to make good decisions." He also thinks "The president is, possibly contrary to public opinion, very good about hearing and wanting contrary advice."

Let me get this straight. Bush's "good decisions" put us into the hellhole we now exist in. Where would we be now if Bush had made bad decisions?

Hadley thinks that the troop surge in Iraq was "the most remarkable thing" Bush did in office.

"I think the balance that you can strike now, after you have not been attacked for seven years, may be a little bit different than the balance that you would strike in the immediate year after the attack when you don't know who the enemy is," Hadley said. "You've got to be careful about that kind of second-guessing, because it's hard to re-create the environment in which those decisions were made in the immediate aftermath of 9/11."

What?!?!? Most think Osama bin Laden is responsible. As I recall this was news on the day of 9/11. Only Bush and his minions thought that Saddam Hussein was responsible. (Or at least that’s what they pretended to think.)

Bolten admits his cluelessness: "maybe there's stuff you would go back and do differently in this administration, but I don't know what that is today."

Again I say What?!?!? Is it even necessary to go into this? What would have happened if we had not attacked Iraq, if the Feds had helped after Katrina (they’re still waiting, you know), if we didn’t torture, spy on our own citizens, and on and on?

Bolten said another of his goals when he took over was to try to get the country to see the likable boss he and other aides saw in private, convinced that would boost Bush's popularity. "I failed miserably," he conceded. "Maybe in the beginning of the sixth year of a presidency, that's a quixotic task. . . . But everybody who has actual personal exposure to the president, almost everybody, appreciates what a good leader he is, how smart he is and, especially, how humane he is."

Hadley invoked Bush's 2000 campaign theme in summing up the president's personal qualities. "He has got this great compassion which was not just a slogan, 'compassionate conservative.' It is who he is. It is one of the great things he brought to this office," Hadley concluded. "This is the one thing that just drives me crazy, that somehow this is an arrogant administration, an arrogant president running an arrogant policy. This guy -- one thing he is not is arrogant."

Let’s look at some definitions of arrogant:

1. Having or displaying a sense of overbearing self-worth or self-importance.
2. Marked by or arising from a feeling or assumption of one's superiority toward others: an arrogant contempt for the weak.

having an exaggerated opinion of one's own importance or ability

having or showing feelings of unwarranted importance out of overbearing pride; "an arrogant official"; "arrogant claims"; "chesty as a peacock"

conceited, lordly, assuming, proud, swaggering, pompous, pretentious, stuck up (informal) cocky, contemptuous, blustering, imperious, overbearing, haughty, scornful, puffed up, egotistical, disdainful, self-important, presumptuous, high-handed, insolent, supercilious, high and mighty (informal) overweening, immodest, swollen-headed, bigheaded (informal) uppish Brit. (informal)

Many think that Bush is the worst president of all time, yet Bush says that time will judge him differently. (“When the history of this period is written, the liberation of Afghanistan and the liberation of Iraq will be remembered as great turning points in the story of freedom.”) If that isn’t arrogance, I don’t know what is.

From They still don't get it by Jed Lewison:

Here's the thing these guys need to get through their thick skulls: the American public has rendered a sour verdict on the Bush Presidency because of what he has done.

This isn't about personality. It's about the fact that Bush is one of the few presidents in history who has left this country in worse condition than when he arrived.

These two clowns still don't understand that the problem isn't the "do I want to have a beer with him?" test, it's the "did he do a good job?" test.

And in case they haven't figured it out yet, the answer is 'no.'

I think that Hooey and Bunk should take their comedy act on the road and see how it plays in the real world.