After Staying Silent on Obama for 8 Years, Bush Bashes Trump at McCain Funeral
Ask any far-left pundits about former President Barack Obama, and they’ll fawn over all of his flawless and perfect deeds while conveniently glossing over anything negative.
In fairness, that’s to be expected from the far-left or Democrats in general. Republicans will often support Republican presidents and Democrats will often support Democrat presidents. That’s typically how partisanship works.
But a supposed Republican or an alleged conservative being hypercritical against a fellow Republican? That’s a bit harder to wrap the brain around.
It’s even more difficult to comprehend when said person remained so mum during Obama’s eight years as president.
Yet, that’s exactly what former President George W. Bush seems to be engaging in after the comments he made at Sen. John McCain’s funeral.
Bush claimed that McCain “detested the abuse of power and could not abide bigots and swaggering despots.” That’s hard to look at as anything more than a veiled shot at the liberal caricature of President Donald Trump.
“(McCain) respected the dignity inherent in every life, a dignity that does not stop at borders and cannot be erased by dictators,” Bush also said.
A snide remark about “borders” and “dictators” seems like a pretty clear shot at Trump, considering that two of the current president’s biggest issues have involved dealing with border security and liberal accusations that Trump is too soft on strongmen like Russia’s Vladimir Putin. (Democrats and the media ignore Obama’s own coddling of Putin, the mullahs in Iran and other foreign despots.)
Bush continued in this fashion, needling Trump with veiled criticisms sprinkled throughout McCain’s eulogy.
“America is better than this” seems like a fairly clear rebuke of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. Bush also mentioned how “presidents were not spared” from McCain’s honesty. While Bush’s remark came through as an allusion to his own disagreements with McCain, it could also be taken as referring to McCain’s very public tussles with the current man in the Oval Office.
“He was honorable, always recognizing that his opponents were still patriots and human beings,” Bush said. That remark seemed like a clear reference to Trump’s cutthroat attitude when it comes to his political foes.
It’s pretty clear that Bush doesn’t seem to be the biggest fan of Trump. And that’s fine. It’s well within Bush’s rights to criticize the president as he sees fit, and Trump’s mauling of Bush’s own brother, Jeb, during the 2016 GOP primary fight certainly didn’t win Trump any friends in the Bush family.
The caveat, however, is that presidential criticisms should be consistent and not hypocritical. Unfortunately for Bush, he fails that test.
Bush remained deafeningly silent during Obama’s eight-year presidency. And again, that’s fine, too. It shows decorum and respect not to publicly trash the president who replaced you, regardless of ideological or political differences.
What’s not fine is hypocrisy.
While Bush has seen fit to attack Trump over whatever media scandals have been ginned up during the current administration, he refused to engage in public cricism of Obama’s genuinely sordid administration. While we’re at it, let’s compare those controversies.
Most of Trump’s scandals make great headlines but lack substance. Alleged sexual encounters from years ago and a vacuous Russian collusion claim, which has yielded zero public evidence thus far, are about the only “stains” on the Trump regime.
Obama? Where to even begin? There was Benghazi, where actual lives were lost, the manipulation of the IRS to attack political foes, which is a far cry from using Twitter to attack political foes, and the little matter of Hillary’s emails.
Yet Bush refused to call out Obama on any of those matters.
But because Trump dared to challenge the establishment, which Bush is very much a part of, No. 43 wants to rip the current president?
It’s the height of hypocrisy.
Perhaps the most ironic part in all of this is that Bush’s establishment and legacy-driven antics are the exact reasons why an outsider rogue like Trump was elected in the first place.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
