Now I get it--he was always in it for the "long haul":
Citing History, Bush Suggests His Policies Will One Day Be Vindicated
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/08/AR200806...By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 9, 2008; A03...(President Bush envisions) a distant future in which Iraq is a tranquil democracy, Palestinians live peaceably alongside Israelis and terrorism is a tactic of the past.
...White House aides say Bush, who majored in history at Yale, likes to emphasize historical comparisons because they are easy for the public to understand and illustrate in dramatic fashion how differently future generations may come to view him.
Unfortunately for the president, many historians have already reached a conclusion. In an informal survey of scholars this spring, just two out of 109 historians said Bush would be judged a success; a majority deemed him the "worst president ever."
...White House officials dispute any link between Bush's recent emphasis on history and his disapproval rating, which is now the highest of any president since Gallup began asking the question in the 1930s.
...Earlier in his presidency, Bush shrugged off questions about his long-term legacy. When Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward asked him in December 2003 how history would judge the Iraq war, Bush responded: "History. We don't know. We'll all be dead."
A week before his address at the Air Force Academy, Bush told paratroopers at Fort Bragg, N.C., that "when the history books are written . . . they will show that freedom prevailed." And during his May trip to the Middle East, Bush told Arab leaders: "Just imagine what this region could look like in 60 years."
We now take you forward in time to the year 2068, to an international historical symposium. The title of the roundtable discussion is: “The Presidency of George W. Bush: Those Were Fine Times, Indeed.”)
Professor Zontar, Historian Emeritus of the Ted Haggard School of Ethics: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let’s begin with the common ground, let’s begin by acknowledging an historical fact that all members of the panel, however different their perspectives, can agree on—that George W. Bush was certainly the finest president in the history of the New American Empire.
(Omnes: cries of “Hear, hear!” “You go, girlfriend!”)
Zontar: Thank you. Having said that, we can move on to areas of legitimate and permissible disagreement without worrying about monitoring of our remarks by the Domestic Loyalty Police, who are honoring us today with their presence at this conference.
(Applause for the Domestic Loyalty Police, cries of “Glad to have you here, comrades in the ongoing struggle against terror!” “Surveillance is security!”)
Zontar: Professor QX32-R, of the Cheney Institute for Moral Absolutes—first question goes to you. Why was it that so many Americans of his day did not rate Bush the Second as a great president?
QX32-R: I think the answer to that question is actually quite obvious. America at that time, was different than the America of today. The American system as we know it now had not quite “crystallized” into what we now hail as “Leadership by the Truly Informed.” At that earlier, more primitive stage of democracy, the most ignorant citizens still had an almost superstitious reverence for their own opinions about matters that they could not possibly know anything about—economics, questions of war and peace, et cetera. All sort of nonsensical, non-Christian perspectives were tolerated and even openly expressed, however stupid and ill-informed. The opinion that Bush the Second was a poor leader was, tragically for him, one of these bizarre delusions that the public was permitted to suffer under.
Dr. Quazzo, of Karl Rove University (formerly “Harvard”) : If I might just interject here for a moment. Professor QX32-R’s comment is true, as far as it goes. But it doesn’t go far enough. It doesn’t address the role of the media of the day in diminishing Bush’s reputation. As we all know, the media of that time was owned by several different news corporations, not just one. While the plural media of sixty years ago was good at some things—ignoring or distracting the public from news that might reflect badly on the White House, for example—it was terrible at what we now know to be the primary function of the media: coordinating public opinion to realize a single, government-directed agenda.
Zontar: Quite correct. This function is the very reason that the media is allowed to exist, as articulated in Article 78 of the American Constitution.
Quazzo: I’m sorry, professor, I believe you mean Article 88. Article 78 is the one that prohibits fornication and gay marriage, recognizes Rush Limbaugh as "an apostle,"and permanently eliminates taxation on the top five per cent of American incomes.
Zontar: You’re quite correct, of course. I misspoke, how embarrassing. But we are still left with the question: how could an officially Christian republic reject the message and agenda of George W. Bush? Pastor Spock, of the One and Only True Faith’s Historical Board, perhaps you’d like to field that one?
Spock: Strange as it may seem to us today, sitting here in tranquility of the glow-in-the –dark, flattened plain of what was formerly the Jewish nation of Israel—not all of the Americans of Bush’s day would have acknowledged that the “United States,” as it was then called, was indeed a Christian nation. The discovery of the so-called “Dead Sea Scroll” addition to the Constitution had not yet taken place. Those missing pages of the Constitution that made it clear that Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton and the other founders had indeed founded a government to make unending war on Islam and bind citizens to the service of Jesus Christ as biblical prophecy fans understand him, were not discovered until the fourth term of President McCain.
Zontar: Yes, I believe the missing pages of the Constitution were discovered by a conservative talk radio host, isn't that so?
Spock: Indeed they were, on the very same day that President McCain’s diseased head was removed from his body and miraculously kept alive in a jar so that he could continue to guide us during the War of Iranian Liberation. As it does to this very day. God bless President McCain, Head of State!
All: GOD BLESS THE HEAD OF STATE!
Zontar: And God bless our boy and girls and old men and old women who are still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and Palestine and India and Los Angeles and New York and San Francisco, too. Well, on that note, I think it’s time to wrap up this discussion before one of us says something that might possibly be construed as disloyal. And now, if you will all follow me into the courtyard, we will attend the opening of New Jerusalem’s Doug Feith Institute for Promoting Peace and Security, and view its beautiful new campus and numerous multistory buildings, construction of all of which was financed by ExxonMobilChevronVenezuela’s very generous donation of a barrel of oil.
All: oooooo...
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Bill Prendergast is also a contributor to Dump Michele Bachmann.
