On Plane to Texas, Critiques of the Speech
By PETER BAKEROn the plane, no longer Air Force One but now Special Air Mission 28000, they talked about the speech. George W. Bush, the former president, was heading home to Texas with his inner circle, having just left the west front of the Capitol, where his successor first thanked him for his service and then proceeded to trash it.
The Bush team had worked assiduously to make the transition smooth for incoming President Obama and stayed out of the way as he used the post-election period to take leadership of the economy even before being sworn in. And now, as far as some of them were concerned, the new president had used his inaugural lectern to give the back of the hand to a predecessor who had been nothing but gracious to him.
Mark McKinnon, the political consultant who helped elect Mr. Bush twice and was on the plane Tuesday, described the mood as one more of equanimity than resentment. In an essay on The Daily Beast, the new web magazine started by Tina Brown, Mr. McKinnon said there were good wishes for the new president and “an absence of malice one normally sees among the constituencies of the vanquished.” But he also said there were “some critical reviews of the speech, complaints about taking unnecessary shots and grousing about borrowed ideas”…
Given the travesty called the Bush Administration, I thought President Obama was exceedingly kind. He stuck to the ideas and the bad decisions. He didn’t say that Bush and Cheney were incompetent, irresponsible, untruthful, arrogant, misguided, jerks that ought to fly from Washington to a Federal Prison [God, it feels good to say that!]. They got off light. And Obama’s Inauguration wasn’t about making them feel good. Had they wanted a different send-off, they could’ve performed differently, or had a different "legacy tour" in which they owned up to one failing, admitted one mistake of consequence, or say almost anything other than "we’re the greatest." Obama was speaking for us, and doing it politely. If they want to hear it straight, all they have to do is ask…
I totally agree that Obama was exceeding restrained. He did not pull any punches in saying what needs to be changed — but he put the blame as much on us as on the previous administration – although we can of course read our own blame in between the lines.
No, to say it was the back of the hand, when they had been nothing but gracious to him, is just more evidence that they just don’t understand what a mess they have made and how furious we are at them for it. To think you deserve praise for being polite as you walk away from the giant turd you’ve left in the middle of the priceless oriental rug is just pathetic.
Well said, Ralph. Well said.