Bush to Hillary Clinton: I'm Truman, You're Ike

[Pirate Smile]

Bush to Hillary Clinton:
I'm Truman, You're Ike


President Bush told a group of broadcasters that he was impressed with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign. (AP).

Karl Rove may not think much of Hillary Rodham Clinton's chances of winning the White House, but it sounds like President Bush is less sanguine. At an off-the-record lunch a week ago, Bush expressed admiration for her tenacity in the campaign. And he left some in the room with the impression that he thinks she will win the election and has been thinking about how to turn over the country to her.

The topic came up when Bush invited a group of morning and evening news anchors and Sunday show hosts to join him in the executive mansion's family dining room a few hours before he delivered his nationally televised address on Iraq last week. Bush made no explicit election predictions, according to some in the room, but clearly thought Clinton would win the Democratic nomination and talked in a way that seemed to suggest he expects her to succeed him - and will continue his Iraq policy if she does.

As Bush was describing his thinking about Iraq and the future, he indicated he wants to use his final 16 months to stabilize Iraq enough and redefine the U.S. mission there so that the next president, even a Democrat, would feel politically able to keep a smaller but long-term presence in the country. The broadcasters were not allowed to directly quote the president, but they were allowed to allude to his thinking and George Stephanopoulos of ABC News later cited the analogy of Dwight D. Eisenhower essentially adopting President Harry S. Truman's foreign policy despite the Republican general's 1952 campaign statements.

"He had kind of a striking analogy," Stephanopoulos said of Bush on air a few hours after the lunch. "He believes that whoever replaces him, like General Eisenhower when he replaced Harry Truman, may criticize the president's policy during the campaign, but will likely continue much of it in office."
It is, in fact, a striking analogy, and of course Bush has been positioning himself as a latter-day Truman for a while, particularly in the sense that Truman was reviled by the public toward the end of his presidency but later earned the respect of history for his leadership at the beginning of the Cold War. Not surprisingly, Bush critics consider that wishful thinking.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/09/21/bush_clinton_will_be_democrati.html#more

[Sparkly]

1. Clinton: "I am rubber, you are glue."

[Colobo]

2. Clinton to Bush: "You are garbage. I'm the janitor."

[Pirate Smile]

4. Much better.

[avrdream]

17. Best description of Hillary's look yet.

She is thinking to herself, "how in the fuck did so many Americans vote for you?"

[SaveElmer]

3. For some reason that picture cracks me up...

The four Bush lackeys are looking at him like "C'mon George, you can take her". Bush looks constipated, and Hillary just looks like she is thinking "Gawd what a moron"

[TwilightGardener]

5. It's disgusting--those four eunuchs are hanging on his every nonsensical word.

[Colobo]

7. It looks like the conversation is going like

Clinton: "I think you know the answer for that question..."
Bush: "2+2... ehhh... what?"

[emilyg]

15. Same reaction here.

[bluestateguy]

6. I prefer another analogy: John Quincy Adams handing over the presidency to Andrew Jackson

Another spoiled rich kid son of a president--albeit one with more brains than this president--who stole his election to office, hands over the office to a real man of the people. Only this time the stand in for Jackson will be John Edwards. And Edwards will not "continue" his failed predecessors policies, he will repudiate them at all levels.

[SaveElmer]

14. You have your history a bit off...

John Quincy Adams was hardly a spoiled rich kid...he was Ambassador to Russia, Ambassador to England, an American negotiator of the treaty of Ghent ending the War of 1812 and Secretary of State, in which capacity he authored the Monroe Doctrine and negotiated the Adams-Otis treaty that acquired Florida. He was among the brilliant men of his time and a highly accomplished individual. After his Presidency he returned to a successful career in Congress and successfully argued the case of the Amistad Africans to the Supreme Court...

The "corrupt bargain" that you are talking about was the rallying cry of Andrew Jackson's forces. No evidence has ever come to light in either Adam's or Clay's personal or public correspondence or journals that indicates a quid pro quo took place...

[illinoisprogressive]

8. Bush just insulted 2 very good presidents.

[Colobo]

9. LOL! You crack me up!

:hi:

[Yurovsky]

10. They seem to be awfully chummy ...

but I guess her gender is more important for many Dems than her actual politics. You want an unending war and occupation? Vote Hillary! She's just like W without the penis!

Heaven forbid anyone consider voting for someone who ACTUALLY WANTS TO END THE WAR NOW. The public wants it to end, but Haliburton & it's toadies in DC obviously don't. I wonder how big a check Hillary & Bill are going to get for keeping the cash flowing to the corporate murderers.

[journalist3072]

12. Memory serves me correctly, this was a photo taken of them shortly after 9/11, when she was trying

to get money to help New York recover. Probably figured she had to be nice to the nit-wit moron, to make sure her state got the money it needed.

[Yurovsky]

13. I don't know when the photo was taken...

but the luncheon mentioned in the article was a recent event. I know what Micheal Corleone had to say about "enemies" (actually he was quoting his "father"), but I'd prefer Hillary not play footsie with W or spend to much time in close proximity to him. Who knows, stupidity might be contagious.

[Odin2005]

11. I don't think "Give 'em Hell Harry" would approve of that comment.

W isn't even one billionth the leader Truman was.

[Forkboy]

16. He's half right.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

18. Ike Was The Supreme Allied Commander And "Won" WW ll

Bush blew his war...

Plus Ike ran on a platform that he would end the war in Korea and he did...