The demagogue returns!

Image by J. Stephen Conn via Flickr

George W. Bush emerged this morning from whatever rock he had been hiding under to unleash the kind of reason-free rant his presidency was known for. In particular, he honed in on Obama’s overhaul of Guantanamo. Said #43:

“I told you I’m not going to criticize my successor,” he said. “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.”

Since leaving office, Bush had drawn praise from all quarters–including David Axelrod–for staying silent about Obama’s policies. Unlike his vice president, Bush seemed to understand the American people’s verdict on his presidency. But these comments demontrate that his silence was just a political calculation, designed to give his eventual criticism maximum impact.

Fortunately, the criticism is so off-the-wall, so thoroughly dishonest, that it’s easy to dismiss.  Think about it. Before going into the “substance” of his Obama criticism, Bush explicitly says that he’s not criticizng Obama–he lies, in other words, about the very premise of what he’s saying. He then turns to two strawmen: first, that some believe terrorists can be persuaded to embrace nonviolence, and second, that some are advocating “therapy” for terroists.

No one in the administration believes either of those things, and no one has remotely advocated any position remotely resembling these things. “Therapy?” Where in God’s name is he getting that from?

Yes, all politicians use strawmen to make their points. The Times recently held Obama over the coals for the practice. But this is different. Bush has only recently departed the White House, and already he is lobbing egregious lies against his successor. What never ceases to amaze me is the degree to which Republicans misunderstand one of the lessons of Obama’s crushing victory: that the public was fed up with the childish, divisive style of our politics. As this morning proves, no one is more adept at that style than Bush.