Flyer of the Week

Re: BDS. It turns out it came up in GWB’s final press conference:

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President. I’d also like to ask you about your critics.

BUSH: Sure. You know any?

QUESTION: Well, a couple of years ago, Charles Krauthammer, columnist and Harvard-trained psychiatrist, coined a term: Bush Derangement Syndrome
. It talked about your critics who — who disagreed with you most passionately; not just your policies, but seemed to take an animosity towards you.

I’m just wondering, as you look back, why you think you engender such passionate criticism, animosity? And do you have any message specifically to those — to that particular part of the spectrum of your critics?

BUSH: You know, most people I see — you know, as I’m moving around the country, for example — they’re not angry. And they’re not hostile people. And they — well, you say, “You never meet people who disagree?” It’s not true. I’ve met a lot of people who don’t agree with the decisions I make, but they have been civil in their discourse.

So, I view those who get angry and yell and say bad things — you know, all that kind of stuff, as just a very few people in the country.

I don’t know why they get angry. I don’t know why they get hostile.

It’s not the first time, however, in history that people have expressed themselves in sometimes undignified ways. I’ve been reading, you know, a lot about Abraham Lincoln during my presidency and there’s some pretty harsh discord when it came to the 16th president, just like there’s been harsh discord for the 43rd president.

You know, presidents can try to avoid hard decisions, and therefore avoid controversy. That’s just not my nature. I’m the kind of person that, you know, is willing to take — to take on hard — hard tasks.

And — and in times of war, people get emotional. I understand that. I’ve never really, you know, spent that much time, frankly, worrying about the loud voices.

I, of course, hear them. But they didn’t affect my policy, nor did they affect — they affect how I made decisions.

You know, the — President-elect Obama will find this, too. He’ll get in the Oval Office and there’ll be a lot of people that are real critical and harsh. And he’ll be disappointed, at times, by the tone of the rhetoric. And he’s going to have to do what he thinks is right.

And — and if you don’t, I don’t see how you can live with yourself. I don’t see how I can get back home in Texas and look in the mirror and be proud of what I see if I allowed the loud voices, the loud critics, to — to prevent me from doing what I thought was necessary to protect this country.

And Rose, in answer to your question (now that I understand it) my personal plan is to forget about the deranged reign of G.W. Bush as soon as is humanly possible.

What about you? Are you going to keep up the ODS tradition you engaged in on your blog during the election? Or will you try to temper the tone of your rhetoric?

Simple: Obama Derangement Syndrome (I just made it up).