You know, normally I love Time Magazine. It's a nice, unbiased slice of life I can digest as I move my bowels each and every Saturday afternoon. It shows up around 4; and I shit around 4:30. Seriously: it's the only thing regular about my poop.

Now, sometimes Time Magazine goes a little looney, like when they spent 2006 deep in religious thought, running a "Was Jesus [INSERT THEORY HERE]" cover nearly every other week. Sometimes Time Magazine releases too much filler (such as this week's "How To Survive A Disaster" nonsense: did we not land something on Mars, for fuck's sake?) And you can always count on Time to end a moment in the cultural zeitgeist. For example, their Ally McBeal cover basically ended that show's cache. 

But, in general, Time Magazine is a good source of moderately intelligent, reasonably balanced reporting. So...how can they explain this idiotic article? To break it down for you, author Ramesh Ponnuru envisions a campaign season where Bush, McCain, and Obama are trying to avoid the ghost of Jimmy Carter's failed Presidency as the former leaves office and the latters try and take up the space.

Uh...yeah.

There's so much wrong with this comparison that I barely know where to begin. Let's start with the obvious: Carter was an ineffective President. He wanted to lead the country and the free world from a place of reason and (entirely unacceptable in America,) sacrifice. He encouraged the United States to wean itself of foreign oil (I know! What a pinko-commie!) He worked with Congress to raise fuel economy standards (which, for the record, were never raised again until this past year.) And he installed solar panels on the roof of the White House.

His flaws? Well, there's the whole Iran hostage thing. He also told we, the people that we, the people were in a malaise, basically calling us fat, lazy, entitled sheep...and our fat, lazy, entitled sheep asses really didn't agree with that. He also has bad teeth and is from Georgia, which basically makes him suck anyway. Oh...and peanut farming.

Basically, Carter wasn't a great President...or even a good one. He was mediocre. The author is correct with the assesment that "the public came to regard Carter as a failed President, and his failure colored attitudes toward his party for more than a decade." But nobody thought Carter was a bad person. To this day, most Americans think of Jimmy Carter as a good guy who shouldn't have been President. (Let's ignore the insanity of his successor, Ronald Reagan, being remember as a great President; this history entirely omits the Iran-Contra scandal, the utter denial of AIDS...and the amplification of both our debt and our military-industrial complex. Let's just say that we, the people are not exactly the best judges of character.)

Now, let's look at Bush. He's nothing like Carter. If Carter is to be remembered as a "Failed President," then Bush is going to be remembered as "The Worst President In The History Of The United States." That's a huuuuuuuge difference in degree. There are many failed executives (Taft, Harrison, Coolidge, Bush the First and Sane...) But there's only one "Worst." 

And that's Bush.

Bush and his cronies have been so bad at governing the country, that the Democrats have been making a comeback in spite of themselves and their own, internal stupidities and divisions. The 'Crats didn't take back the Congress because they sold America a good story; they had no narrative, no plan and no clue...but Bush and his Neocons had fucked up so much (and for so long,) that we, the people didn't have another choice but to vote Democratic. 

That's how bad Bush is.

Carter may have stereotyped the left as 'weak on defense and economics,' but Bush has taken nearly every talking point off of the table for the Republican Party. We're throwing billions into our duo of wars in the Middle East with little to show for it. And our economy is in the toilet (does it feel like 1929, or what?) So now the Republicans are weak on defense and economics as well. We can also throw in the environment, civil liberties, civil rights, education, the seapration of church and state, international relations...

...yeah, it's pretty bad. You rack up quite a list when you're the worst.

Mind you, this may have not affected the Republican Party as badly if they didn't all fall in place behind Bush and his insane plans. But, they did...and now it's the GOP that's on fire, rather than one retard dirt farmer from Texas. Think about it: the Republican Party didn't implode over Nixon, for fuck's sake! Nope. They stood up for what was right and were thus protected from Nixon's wrongs.

And Nixon was like Winston Churchill compared to Bush. He was nowhere near as bad.

There's only one 'worst.'

So, once you assert that Bush is, in fact, "The Worst President In The History Of The United States," the article's claims entirely fall apart. For example, Ponnuru claims that "...the only sure way for [Bush] to escape [being considered a failure] is for a Republican to win the presidency this year."

Ummmm....no. 

McCain can win the White House. He could govern for the next eight years. His VP could win the seat and Republicans could run the executive branch for the next 16 years. It makes no difference, though. Bush's reign will always be a failure.

Because he's the worst.

The article also notes that "ever since Obama said he was willing to negotiate with those enemies directly and 'without precondition,' Republicans have been trying to tag him as the son of the Georgia governor. " So what? Let them try. Thus far, Obama has proven to be nothing like Carter. He's like fucking Teflon for fuck's sake. Nothing sticks. Plus...what are the Republicans trying to say...that we, the people don't want another Carter?

We, the people, don't want another Bush. Because he's the worst. Carter...we could stomach. Because he's not Bush. 

This whole article is chock-full of stupid nonsense like this (I'm not even going to dignify the batshit Carter-McCain tie.) It concludes it's non-narrative with "Obama and McCain will spend the fall fighting to be the 44th President. Both they and Bush will also fight to avoid any comparisons with the 39th."

Wrong. Obama and McCain should be so lucky to be compared to Carter. McCain should be trying to avoid comparisons to the 43rd.

Because he's the worst.
 
 

 

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