Think Progress

In coup aftermath, Hugo Chavez seen as the ‘George Bush of Latin America.’

The New York Times reports today that, despite Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s attempts to portray the U.S. as the instigators of last weekend’s coup in Honduras, the Obama administration appears to have out-maneuvered him. Obama “firmly condemned the coup, defusing Mr. Chávez’s charges,” and leaders of other Latin American countries and media outlets seemed unwilling to accept Chávez’s portrayal of “Washington as the coup’s possible orchestrator.” Chávez’s unpopular and belligerent rhetoric inspired Venezualan opposition party Acción Democrática to dub him the “George Bush of Latin America“:

Mr. Obama’s nonconfrontational diplomacy seems to have caught Mr. Chávez off balance. “Chávez is beginning to understand that he’s dealing with someone with a very different approach than his predecessor,” said Michael Shifter, vice president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington policy research group. …

Mr. Chávez’s threats of belligerence in Central America led one opposition party here, Acción Democrática, to issue a statement on Monday that was full of irony: “Hugo Chávez has become the George Bush of Latin America.”

Bush insinuates that he disagrees with Obama’s plan to close Gitmo.

In a speech to the Manufacturing and Business Association in Erie, PA last night, President Bush insinuated that he disagreed with President Obama’s plan to close the Guantanamo Bay prison and try some of the detainees in U.S. courts. “I’ll just tell you that there are people at Gitmo that will kill American people at a drop of a hat and I don’t believe that — persuasion isn’t going to work. Therapy isn’t going to cause terrorists to change their mind,” Bush said. But in June 2006, Bush endorsed a course of action quite similar to Obama’s current plan:

BUSH: I’d like to end Guantanamo. I’d like it to be over with. One of the things we will do is we’ll send people back to their home countries. [...] There are some who need to be tried in U.S. courts. They’re cold-blooded killers. They will murder somebody if they’re let out on the street. And yet, we believe there’s a — there ought to be a way forward in a court of law.

Further, as Jake Tapper notes, Bush’s remark that “therapy” won’t help rehabilitate some of the detainees is surprising given the fact that Bush himself sent approximately 120 former Guantanamo detainees to a Saudi-based counseling center for rehabilitation. 60 Minutes recently reported on the success of the Saudi program.

Reneging on pledge to give Obama his ‘silence,’ President Bush criticizes Obama’s health care plan.

After initially stating that he wanted President Obama to “succeed” and that he owed Obama his “silence,” President Bush yesterday decided to reverse course and criticize the President. The former President took aim at Obama’s desire to introduce a public health insurance option for Americans:

“There are a lot of ways to remedy the situation without nationalizing health care,” Mr. Bush said. “I worry about encouraging the government to replace the private sector when it comes to providing insurance for health care.”

Asked by the evening emcee at the 104th annual Manufacturer and Business Association meeting if he finds the new president’s policies “socialist,” Mr. Bush started then stopped.

“I hear a lot of those words, but it depends on…,” he said, breaking off. He later offered a more diplomatic assessment: “We’ll see.”

Former Gov. Howard Dean, a strong advocate of a public plan, responded to Bush’s criticisms this morning on NBC’s Today Show. “We’ve had a government system for 50 years,” Dean said. “The Republicans didn’t like it then — it’s called Medicare. Everybody over 65 is already in the government system. Let the people who are under 65 make a choice.” Watch it:

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll finds that 76 percent of respondents believe that it is “extremely” or “quite” important to “give people a choice of both a public plan administered by the federal government and a private plan for their health insurance.”

Hatch bristles over criticisms that he’s at fault for problems of the Bush years: ‘Don’t you believe that B.S.’

Yesterday at Utah’s GOP convention, the state’s two U.S. senators — Orrin Hatch (R) and Bob Bennett (R) received only “polite receptions,” compared to the boisterous applause received by some of the state’s representatives. From the Deseret News:

Hatch, at one point in his speech, appeared upset when some delegates applauded as a way of blaming national Republicans, himself included, for the deficit and other problems of the Bush years.

“Don’t you believe that B.S.,” Hatch said loudly. But some of the 1,800 delegates clearly did.

While many delegates stood and applauded the longtime incumbents (Hatch 33 years, Bennett 15 years), others sat on their hands — not booing, but showing their disapproval through silence.

Many attendees also expressed displeasure with Gov. John Huntsman (R), who has agreed to become President Obama’s ambassador to China. GOP party chair Jude Law said that Huntman’s endorsement of civil unions “mocks God.” (HT: Huffington Post)

George H.W. Bush condemns right-wing attacks on Sotomayor: Those ‘radical’ statements are ‘not right.’

Today in an interview with CNN, President George H.W. Bush condemned the right-wing attacks on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. Specifically, he took issue with the assertion that Sotomayor is “racist,” which has been made by Newt Gingrich, Tom Tancredo, and Rush Limbaugh:

“I don’t know her that well but I think she’s had a distinguished record on the bench and she should be entitled to fair hearings. Not – [it's] like the senator John Cornyn said it,” he told CNN. “He may vote for it, he may not. But he’s been backing away from these…backing off from those radical statements to describe her, to attribute things to her that may or may not be true.

“And she was called by somebody a racist once. That’s not right. I mean that’s not fair. It doesn’t help the process. You’re out there name-calling. So let them decide who they want to vote for and get on with it.”

In 1991, Bush nominated Sotomayor as a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, making her “the youngest judge in the Southern District of New York and the first Hispanic federal judge in the state.”

Boehner: Republicans ‘took it in the shorts with Bush-Cheney.’

In an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) pinned the blame for his party’s current failures on the Bush presidency:

“We’re digging ourselves out of a deep hole,” he admitted. “We took it in the shorts with Bush-Cheney, the Iraq War, and by sacrificing fiscal responsibility to hold power.”

Boehner has only to blame to himself. He voted to authorize use of military force against Iraq, and voted against a House-approved Iraq withdrawal in 2007. He also voted for the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, which were largely responsible for turning our nation’s surplus into a massive deficit. As Boehner himself said in 2006, “I think that Republicans ought to stand up and support George W. Bush for the job that he’s done.” (HT: Political Wire)

Gen. Ricardo Sanchez calls for war crimes truth commission.

Sitting on a panel moderated by Rachel Maddow last night, retired Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Iraq from 2003-2004, called for a truth commission to investigate Bush-era interrogation and torture tactics. The Huffington Post’s Jack Hidary reports:

The General described the failures at all levels of civilian and military command that led to the abuses in Iraq, “and that is why I support the formation of a truth commission.”

The General went on to say that, “during my time in Iraq there was not one instance of actionable intelligence that came out of these interrogation techniques.”

I interviewed General Sanchez after the event and asked him to elaborate on why he felt the US needed such a commission. … “If we do not find out what happened,” continued the General, “then we are doomed to repeat it.”

Sanchez described the interrogation program as “a personal failure on the part of many.” Indeed, Sanchez himself wrote and signed a 2003 memo that included specific interrogation tactics approved for use despite noting that they may violate the Geneva Conventions. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sanchez denied signing off on these interrogation methods.

Bush wavers on whether Obama is a socialist: ‘People are waiting to see what all this means.’

President Bush — in contrast to Dick Cheney — has insisted that President Obama “deserves my silence.” Yesterday, in his largest domestic speech since leaving office, however, Bush would not rule out whether Obama is a socialist, saying that “people are waiting to see what all this means.” In the same breath, Bush defended his own massive intervention in the financial system:

He strongly defended his Troubled Asset Relief Program as crucial to preventing capital markets from freezing up, which he said would have led to another Great Depression. He noted that he remains “a free market guy.”

Bush was asked what he thinks about conservative pundits who claim the Obama administration’s fiscal policies are opening the door to socialism. “I’ve heard talk about that,” he said. “I think the verdict is out. I think people are waiting to see what all this means.”

“I didn’t like it when a former president criticized me, so therefore I am not going to criticize my successor. I wish him all the best,” Bush said.

Bush still pre-screening questions at speaking events.

Throughout George W. Bush’s presidency, his handlers always made a special effort to ensure his appearances with regular Americans were scripted in such a way that shined the best possible light on Bush and his polices. Whether he was meeting troops in Iraq, leading “Ask President Bush” re-election campaign events, or trying to sell his (failed) Social Security reform plan, Bush always had a friend in the audience ready to ask a softball question or heap praise on the president. It appears that old habits die hard, as those attending Bush’s upcoming speech in Michigan will be forced to submit their questions ahead of time:

Former President George W. Bush will make a stop in Michiana on Thursday. He is scheduled to speak to the Economic Club in Benton Harbor this evening. Mister Bush will answer questions that have been submitted.

Even though Bush recently acknowledged that it is “liberating” to no longer be president, he apparently still feels “pretty comfortable inside the bubble.”

Rove: Attending top schools doesn’t mean that Sotomayor is smart, but it proves that Bush is.

During a debate at Radio City Music Hall last night, former Bush adviser Karl Rove claimed that Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor was “not necessarily” “very smart.” When host Charlie Rose noted in response that she attended Princeton and Yale Law School, Rove replied that you don’t have to be smart to attend a top school:

Rove - “She is competent and will be confirmed….She has an interesting and compelling life story…”

Charlie - “She is very smart.”

Rove “Not necessarily.”

Charlie - “What do you mean? She went to Princeton where she graduating with honors and then went on to Yale Law School….”

Rove- “I know lots of stupid people who went to Ivy League schools.” The crowd applauds.

Rove’s dismissal of Ivy League attendance is ironic considering that in an interview previewing the debate, he cited George W. Bush’s experience at Harvard and Yale to mock claims that Bush is stupid. “The myth was that this guy, who was a Yale history grad and a Harvard MBA, was not smart,” Rove told the Chicago Tribune. In December 2008, Rove also touted Bush’s time at Harvard and Yale in a Wall Street Journal column, writing, “You don’t make it through either unless you are a reader.”

Bush: ‘It’s a liberating feeling’ that I am no longer president.

New Mexico’s Roswell Daily Record reports that during a speech to graduating local high school students, President Bush “expressed few regrets” about the policies he enacted as president. At the same time, however, Bush said that he’s glad he’s not in the position to make policy anymore. “I no longer feel that great sense of responsibility that I had when I was in the Oval Office,” he said. “And frankly, it’s a liberating feeling.” Bush also remarked on how his life is “back to normal”:

Bush told the soon-to-be-graduates that it was a strange experience walking his dog Barney in his new neighborhood after he moved back to Texas.

“I realized this was the first time I’d been walking in a neighborhood for 14 years,” he said. “It’s not all that hard, by the way. You take one step, and then you take another.”

It was the first time Barney had ever been in an ordinary neighborhood, and Bush had to stop when the dog took liberties with a neighbor’s yard.

“And there I was, former President of the United States of America, with a plastic bag on my hand,” he recalled. “Life is returning back to normal.”