Democrats really do love Republicans — when they’re dead

[WestVirginiaRebel]

NY Post

He was a patriot, a hero, a ­genial gentleman and a great American. You can’t pick up a newspaper or go near a television without hearing leftists gush with praise for the late President George H.W. Bush. Who knew they felt this way?

And you are not mistaken if the outpouring of previously unknown affection for the first President Bush sounds familiar. That’s because it is almost identical to the loving send-off the same suspects gave Sen. John McCain after he died in August.

It all just goes to prove that Democrats and their media handmaidens really do love Republicans — when they’re dead. All the more so if, when they were alive, they ­opposed President Trump.

There were reports that both Bush and McCain voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. See, good Republicans.

McCain’s feud went beyond the grave, when it became known that he did not want Trump at his funeral. McCain got extra love for that ­final bit of pettiness.

Paradoxically, Bush gets extra credit because he wanted Trump at his funeral, even though both gestures are seen as a rebuke to the current president. In this case, Bush is hailed for rising above pettiness.

There is another phony dimension in the media’s praise for Bush and McCain in that both were said to epitomize a less toxic time in politics. While it’s true that politics wasn’t always as vicious as it is now and that Democrats and Republicans actually socialized frequently, the mainstream media didn’t share in that bipartisan bonhomie when it came to coverage.

Even then, their bias tilted left, although their double standard has reached new depths in recent years. I believe the press corps’ lapdog approach to Barack Obama and attack-dog approach to Trump are part of why Americans have become so polarized.

Indeed, many Trump voters ­explain their support for him as a reaction to left-wing press bias and the failure of other Republicans to fight back the way Trump does.

The heydays of press hatred for Bush and McCain came during their presidential campaigns. Long before they were saluted for their late-in-life stances against Trump, Bush 41 and McCain were declared unfit to be president.

________

No love for them while they were alive.

[Valin]

The Media Thought George H.W. Bush Was Terrible. Then They Met Trump.

Philip Terzian

Dec. 7 2018

To his credit, President Trump rose to the occasion on the death of George H. W. Bush. Among other things, his immediate response—on Twitter, of course—was a generous and eloquent tribute, mindful not only of the late president’s distinction but of his own obligation to the office he now inhabits. Yet Trump must also have taken some measure of comfort from the obituaries. I was hardly the first or only observer to note that many of the statesmen and journalists who lined up to heap praise on the life and character of George Bush had not, to put it gently, felt quite the same way when he was in office.

(Snip)

In the meantime, I was surprised and gratified in equal measure by the kindly words and generous assessments of Bush the man and president. He was, by any reckoning, a faithful and consequential steward of the presidency and skillful practitioner of the diplomatic arts. I may also confess that, as one who tends to regard the presidency in sociological terms, Bush was a great enthusiasm of mine—much more to my personal taste than his iconic predecessor. This is a grand illusion, of course: Credentials are not all they’re cracked up to be—in 1980 it took me a while to get used to the actor-candidate Ronald Reagan—and the old WASP ascendancy that produced George Bush has long since fallen into disrepair.

Still, the virulence of the media’s contempt for Bush—in 1988 and, especially, in 1992—caught me off-guard at the time since he seemed to embody much of what Americans seek in political leaders. To be sure, in speech, he was not especially fluent or what we might regard as a natural politician. His syntax belied his Phi Beta Kappa key from Yale, and while I found his awkward courtliness endearing, we tend to expect our presidents to be smoothies on stage. Like Dean Acheson or Bush’s great friend James Baker, Bush seemed suited more to appointive than elective office—and indeed had flourished in a number of them.

(Snip)