The Decider's Lowest Presidential Points

Thankfully-ex President George W. Bush has now proudly carried on a presidential tradition started by his father: he's taking on the rappers. If you haven't heard by now, "The Decider" has written a memoir, where he says that, when Kanye West told the nation that W. doesn't care about black people, he was "disgusted" and "deeply insulted" and it was the lowest point of his presidency.

Personally, I don't get it. I could understand if that telethon was the lowest point in Mike Meyer's professional career. I mean, the brother hung him out to dry. You can just tell he was thinking, "Will you please shut the fuck up. I'm Canadian, yo. They can take away my green card. They're gonna 'extraordinary rendition' my ass to Syria."

I could even understand if Kanye had actually been Laura Bush telling the nation, in that cute Xanax-y drawl of hers, "My husband doesn't care about nigras." That would've really sucked. But Kanye?! Come on now. How the hell does he even appear on your radar. I have Kanye's first two albums, and even I don't care what the hell Kanye says.

Look, if the mucho macho Connecticut Ranger wanted to go all weepy Taylor Swift just to sell books, that's fine. He could've casually mentioned that Kanye's a punk-ass bitch and he gonna smoke dat fool. But saying that that was the lowest point in his quite historic Presidency ... that's going a bit far, W. Just off the top of my head (and I'm in a rush to get to work here), I can come up with at least a few moments during your White House tenure that are most definitely, in retrospect, much worse than when Kanye called you out and smacked the eyes out your momma's head (oh wait, too late):

Robert Frost on Today's Elections

"It looked as if a night of dark intent
Was coming, and not only a night, an age.
Someone had better be prepared for rage...."

--Robert Frost, "Once by the Pacific"

Obama Will Want the Anal Probe: The Latest Teapublican Logic

The other day I had the distinct pleasure of listening to the Left's favorite "moderate" Republican, David Frum, on the radio. The question was: Who will you be voting for on Tuesday? Coming as a complete surprise, Frum waxed profound about why he was going to vote a straight Republican ticket.

His primary reasoning was that the country is in collapse and absolutely nothing that Obama has done has worked. In fact, if it hadn't been for Bush's TARP, this country would totally be in the shitter. (Funny how the Teapublicans have been hanging TARP around Obama's neck for the last two years, but, now that it seems to have been somewhat effective, at least Frum wants to take credit for it.) Basically, The Big Brother is utterly incompetent, and Frum claimed that the reason behind this buffoonery is because Obama has refused to lead. He has basically let the Democrats ride him like a brokeback bronco, and Obama has simply been presiding instead of being Presidential. Frum believes, if his party takes over one or both houses of Congress tomorrow, Obama will be forced to compromise, be forced to become a leader, and that he should actually embrace such an opportunity.

Now, since Obama's presidential election victory and the Republicans got booted out of power, I have heard from certain GOP quarters a queer sort of nostalgia for the days of Clinton and Newt. They speculate that this is perhaps the best way that the American government should be run--a Dem in the White House and Cons running the legislature. They speak fondly of the balanced budget, the projected budget surpluses, and all that economic prosperity of the late 1990s.