Let's Be the Presidency of George W. Bush

I'm Colin Powell and I really blew it

I'm the pretzels he choked on.

I'm American Imperialism

I’m the children. Is I learning?

I'm Donald Rumsfeld, and I am smarter than you

I'm putting food on my family

I'm donald rumsfeld, a man who likely has killed someone with his own bare hands

I'm Conservative White House reporter and former gay escort, Jeff Gannon.

I was one of W's favorites.

I love my gay escorts!

I'm the shoe thrown at W's head by the Iraqi reporter.

I'm Pickles, sneaking a cigarette.

I'm George W. Bush trying to exit the room through a locked door.

Yes, I looked like a complete idiot.

I'm the highways of the Internet becoming more few

I'm the human being and fish coexisting peacefully

I'm the protests at his inaugural parade, complete with egg pelting at the limo. We knew it was all downhill from here, but had no idea how rapidly the gravity would pull us down.

I'm the most dishonest, horrific war in the history of the U.S. (Yes, even worse than Vietnam when you consider the geopolitical angle.) And the conspiracy theorists are probably right about some of the things regarding me, too. But none of that matters. Some paintings will be made in a few years by the Commander in Chief who approved me and everything will be forgiven. Ain't it beautiful?

The controversy over Gannon's background started after President George W. Bush's January 26, 2005, press conference, at which Gannon asked the president the following question:

[quote] Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the U.S. economy. (Senate Minority Leader) Harry Reid was talking about soup lines. And (Senator) Hillary Clinton was talking about the economy being on the verge of collapse. Yet in the same breath they say that Social Security is rock solid and there's no crisis there. How are you going to work – you've said you are going to reach out to these people – how are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?

Gannon's question was ridiculed on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart enquiring, "Who is this muckraking Jeff Gannon, who is holding the president's feet to the fire so that he can more easily give him a reach-around?" The question was also derided by a number of bloggers who considered it an excessively deferential question for a reporter to ask at a presidential press conference. The question also contained a factually inaccurate assertion: the supposed comments about soup lines had not been made by Reid, but had been satirically attributed to him by conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh.

After the January 26, 2005, press conference, scrutiny into his personal and professional background by news organizations and blogs began. On February 8, 2005, Gannon resigned from Talon News and shut down his website, Jeffgannon dot com. According to Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post:

[quote] Jeff Gannon, ... whose naked pictures have appeared on a number of gay escort sites, says that he has 'regrets' about his past but that White House officials knew nothing about his salacious activities.

Gannon said that he has been stalked and that his family has been harassed. He has revived his website since that time.

Gannon is alleged to have registered several Internet domain names, including hotmilitarystud dot com and Militaryescorts4m dot com and posted naked pictures of himself. According to The Independent:

[quote] Bloggers revealed that Jeff Gannon... had previously worked as a $200-an-hour gay prostitute who advertised himself on a series of websites with names such as hotmilitarystud dot com.

When these ads became public, Gannon refused to specifically address them, but admitted that he had made mistakes in his past.

During the 2004 election, he wrote that John Kerry "might someday be known as 'the first gay president'" and that Kerry had supported "the pro-gay agenda."

Cliff Kincaid, editor of the conservative organization Accuracy in Media, wrote that "(t)he campaign against Gannon demonstrates the paranoid mentality and mean-spirited nature of the political left."

In April 2006, Gannon appeared on the television program Lie Detector, produced by Mark Phillips Philms and Telephision for the PAX Network (now Ion Television) submitting to and passing a polygraph test while asserting that he was not a White House operative.

I'm My Pet Goat.

I'm the Valerie Plame Affair:

[quote] The Plame affair (also known as the CIA leak scandal and Plamegate) was a political scandal that revolved around journalist Robert Novak's public identification of Valerie Plame as a covert Central Intelligence Agency officer in 2003.

[quote] In 2002, Plame wrote a memo to her superiors in which she expressed hesitation in recommending her husband, former diplomat Joseph C. Wilson, to the CIA for a mission to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq had arranged to purchase and import uranium from the country, but stated that he "may be in a position to assist". After President George W. Bush stated that "Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" during the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Wilson published a July 2003 op-ed in The New York Times stating his doubts during the mission that any such transaction with Iraq had taken place.

[quote] A week after Wilson's op-ed was published, Novak published a column in The Washington Post which mentioned claims from "two senior administration officials" that Plame had been the one to suggest sending her husband. Novak had learned of Plame's employment, which was classified information, from State Department official Richard Armitage. David Corn and others suggested that Armitage and other officials had leaked the information as political retribution for Wilson's article.

[quote] The scandal led to a criminal investigation; no one was charged for the leak itself. Scooter Libby was convicted of lying to investigators. His prison sentence was ultimately commuted by President Bush, and he was pardoned by President Donald Trump in 2018.

I'm Hurricane Katrina.

I'm Harry Whittington.

I'm "You're doing a heck of a job, Brownie!"

I'm 9/11, the first foreign attack on domestic soil since Pearl Harbor during WWII. I occurred because George W. Asshole spent much of his first months in office leaning into his nepo baby incompetence, ignored what the job of the presidency requires, filled his cabinet with a bunch of war-mongering fuckwit ghouls, and vacationed much of the summer at his Shithole, Texas ranch from a job he wasn't even doing. Nearly 3k people died that day or after, from attack-related illnesses and cancers.

Speaking of things we should "Never Forget," let's never forget all of this.

Sorry, it's "And Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job!"

I'm the "Oh Shit!!! look on my face when they told me about the first attack on the WTC as I was pretending to read to children.

.

I'm Dick Cheney's Shadow Presidency.

R23 But he’s a good republicunt now and attended a few gay weddings. Don’t you see, that excuses all past sins. He might even endorse Momala.

I’m “compassionate conservatism”.

It was a magnificent eight years. He's my friend. I love hanging out with him because it helps me manifest the deep self-loathing I have for myself no matter how much fame and wealth I acquire.

I’m Condoleeza’s failed national security advice.

Im Freedom Fries.

I'm the coup of 2001.

I'm PEPFAR, quite confidently the only decent thing I did during my administration. Pretty sure W. signed me in error, probably mistaking me for orders to invade a sovereign country that had nothing to do with 9/11.

I can’t believe I get to be Condi!

I’m Harriet Meyers, the Supreme Court nominee so embarrassing I had to slink away and be replaced by Sam Alito.

How are you?

I’m Dick Cheney’s fifth heart attack.

I’m mangled syntax.

I'm the guy Cheney shot in the face!

I’m Big Oil.

I set the policy around here.

Sanctions on Iraq are awfully inconvenient. Need I say more?

I'm Laura's empty carton of Benson & Hedges Ultra Light 120s stuffed behind the pretzels in the White House pantry.

I'm Yellowcake!

I’m the “stove piping” of intel on Iraq so we will find evidence of WMD and can invade, even if the seasoned analysts think the intel is garbage.

I cost hundreds of thousands of lives and American taxpayers trillions of dollars.

Thanks to me, Iraq is an Iranian puppet state now.

I'm the next Republican presidential term that was so outrageously terrible that it made George W Bush look almost acceptable by comparison.

I'm the lesbian mafia.

I’m the guy Dick Cheney shot in the face, going on TV and apologizing for getting in the way of Cheney’s bullet.

Eldergays did you guys find him hot?

I'm 9/11 - it happened on his watch after receiving some 'memo's about Taliban plan to attack NYC.

I created a huge federal slush fund for 9/11 survivors to pay them to shut them all up.

No, we never paid out money for the Oklahoma federal building victims' families or anything else before.

I'm the boogeyman "GAY MARRIAGE" in the 2004 election cycle used to get the issue on the ballot to increase conservative votes and have Bush win again. All brought to you by a gay man working for Bush.

No thanks, OP. Living through it once was bad enough.

I'm the Republican response to 9/11: It was all Bill and Hillary's fault since they had 8 years to eliminate the Taliban and didn't do squat.

Which is exactly what Dubya did about the Taliban during his first 8 months in office, until it was too late.

It wasn’t a bullet, r45.

(Apparently that fag don’t hunt.)

You hunt birds with shotguns.

I’m the President’s Daily Brief for August 6, 2001.

Something about “Bin Laden determined to attack US”, the World Trade Center and hijacked airplanes yadda yadda yadda.

BORING

I’ll be buried for quite some time.

I’m Cheney’s secure undisclosed locations.

We're Barney and Miss Beazley Bush, the Scottish Terriers who made appearances on the Barney Cam.

I’m Mission Accomplished!

I'm the shoe on its way to his face.

I'm Karl Rove and you might not like me, but I know elections better than anyone else. I also hate Trump.

I'm Abu Ghraib

I'm the shitty economy, climaxing with the real estate crisis in 2008.

I'm his twin daughters caught drinking ( underage)

I’m nuke-yu-lar, because the leader of the free world cannot pronounce “nuclear” correctly to save his damn life.

R38 see R21

R61, excuse me for not going to Google to look up a guy's name from 20 years ago when I could use a descriptor instead.

I’m the Guantanamo detainees (some of us still there).

R47 who was that gay man. Call him out. Matt Drudge?

And the only reason why Drudge has stayed in mental Rolodex is because this big Yugoslavian kid in my high school was a right winger and always talked about that site. And I learned how influential Drudge was in conservative politics and also that he is from Takoma Park as I am, he just grew up on the Maryland side.

I'm Karen Hughes, I am the "voice of soccer moms and other everyday people."

[Quote] I'm 9/11

Hey belated happy birthday, brah!

To be fair, r60, that seems to have been a Republican affectation, because their post-war godfather, Eisenhower, wasn’t able to pronounce it correctly.

[quote] I'm Karen Hughes, I am the "voice of soccer moms and other everyday people."

R66 I'm all of this in a bull dyke, girls' soccer coach exterior.

I'm the patriotic duty to go shopping after a national trauma.

Note to those of a younger generation: There was a time when everyone into politics on both sides checked out the Drudge report. I don't mean there was a time when Drudge wasn't a rabid right winger. No, a lot of the people who frequented his site hated him and his politics. But for a moment, he did get a lot of attention. You see, when was at his peak, there was the Internet, of course, but no social media. Just lots of political message boards and regular news sites that weren't always great about updating immediately and stuff like that. So, if you wanted the political news of the next day a few hours early, that's where you'd go. He did get a few actually important leaks/tips sent to him, but the main draw was that he was often tipped off by people/the press themselves as to what news was going to break over the next few hours or days. So, if you were a news junkie, you at least tolerated him, even if you thought he was a cunt.

I don't think he has anything to do with his site anymore. Could be wrong. But he sold it, I think, and now is just enjoying his money from years of being a mysterious dick. (Well, ass would probably be a better term. Probably a bottom, I'm guessing...)

Who would have thought that I was NOT going to be THE worst.

[quote] And the only reason why Drudge has stayed in mental Rolodex is because this big Yugoslavian kid in my high school was a right winger and always talked about that site

Are you Barron Trump?

I'm Halliburton - I received billions of government no-bid contracts. That's right - nobody else was allowed to bid. I used to employ Dick Cheney.

I'm the repeal of banking oversight that led the country and the world to the brink of economic disaster. But people still blame homeowners for taking out loans they couldn't afford - although Banks are supposed to determine that.

I'm Mary Cheney - the VP's gay daughter. I went around campaigning for Bush and my Dad - both of whom were actively trying to get gay marriage banned across the nation in order to win.

My sister is still against gay marriage.

[quote]My sister is still against gay marriage.

I believe Liz has now stated she was "wrong" to have opposed gay marriage.

R76 - of course she did - all Republicans then pretend like it was no big deal. Fucking bitch. Hope her sister is icy towards her.

She only said that when she knew she was going to not win election again for taking on Jan 6th and all that bullshit.

Republicans are just awful people - no exceptions anymore. Seriously.

[quote]I'm the patriotic duty to go shopping after a national trauma.

Don't forget to stop by the food court for a side of Freedom Fries, which are 10 times better than those godawful French ones.

I'm former ABC News correspondent, Jeffrey Kofman,

From the report in The Advocate July 22, 2003:

[quote] Openly gay journalist Jeffrey Kofman has apparently become the target of a smear campaign after he broadcast a report for ABC News about the plummeting morale among U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq. Internet gossip Matt Drudge told The Washington Post last week that he had received a phone call from the White House communications department tipping him off to the fact that Kofman is not only Canadian but also gay.

[quote] After the report aired, the military said the soldiers who had spoken out would be disciplined. Some reports suggested that the six men Kofman interviewed might face the end of their military careers because of their comments. The news broadcast and the revelations on the Drudge Report also engendered sharp criticism from several right-wing pundits, who have accused Kofman of disloyalty because of his sexual orientation and Canadian citizenship.

Photo from an appearance at Syracuse University, 2023. Still hot.

I'm Old Europe - The longtime U.S. allies who weren't all in on the invasion of Iraq, thus earning the ire of Donald Rumsfeld.

I'm Laura Bush. I killed a guy.

I'm the dismissal of seven US attorneys because they were doing their job and not prosecuting Dems and overlooking crimes by Republicans.

Forgot all about this shit.

Bush 2 was AWFUL. Corrupt as hell.

R82 I recall that despicable politicization of the DOJ. Republicans have been trying to weaponize the justice department and the high courts ever since.

I'm strategery.

I'm the political whitewashing in 2016-2024, simply because we've had a more odious administration since.

R75 No, Dick Cheney never campaigned against gay marriage. He firmly said "no" when asked by the campaign.

I actually think the Dubya years were worse than Trump's. But Trump is so loud and obnoxious that his many flaws are more obvious.

I am the term "gaffe" becoming more popular than ever.

Now watch this drive.

R86 - he was the vice president- yes he said no, but the party said YES, let's ban it. His small voice had no impact - he supported a party that was against it. They absolutely used the Boogeyman of Gay Marriage in the 2004 election.

I'm the media talking about Swift Boat Veterans over and over - which was a bullshit group of Texan Republicans trying to smear John Kerry with provable LIES.

You're right, R87. GWB inflicted far more damage on the world (and had a full two terms to do so).

Gosh, this is depressing, those were awful times. . . .

R89 I understand what you are saying, but I personally have always admired Cheney for supporting his daughter regardless of what his party was saying.

I'm the ability to string sentences, even paragraphs, together. We can hold press conferences in real hotels and don't have to worry about cheap hair dye dripping.

Hell, we can even write in cursive and have read actual books!

There's nothing really that brave or noble about supporting, and standing by, your own blood, especially as, for all we know, he'd have been as homophobic as the next Republican had Mary been straight (sorry, not willing to give him the benefit of the doubt). Wanting to protect your own children is primal, even for the Dick Cheneys of this world. It would have been more admirable if he had openly stood by a gay subordinate and officiated their marriage or some such. Anyone not related to him by blood.

I’m one of the American foreign exchange students in Uni at the time studying in Europe just after the Iraq invasion. How thrilling to know our country’s reputation was well on its way to being flushed town the toilet. (This is true, not made up).

I believe you, r95. Bush had a reputation for being dumb, but what country hasn't had a dumb leader or two? The Iraq War tho took things to a new level. Afghanistan was one thing. Iraq was unjustified and everyone else in the world knew it. Saddam being a shitty tyrant didn't justify it either. Lots of shitty tyrants in charge of countries around.

Also, I’m the Condi troll in their formative years, realizing I will never need an actual significant other when I have these pictures of Condi I tore out of newspapers.

I’m also Cindy Sheehan - the mother of one of the war’s casualties. After the death of my son in war, I made a name for myself speaking out against it. As a consequence, all of the right-winger Warhawk conservative filth like those gasbags Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, et al would proceed to badmouth me at every opportunity while all of their children weren’t in the armed forces and kept busy tucked away safe in the Ivy Leagues.

OH!! Who could forget….

I’m the FREEDOM FRIES!!!

I'm the over-politicized Terry Schiavo case.

R96, i got roped into taking a weekend trip to Morocco in the spring (2004) and we ended up just passing ourselves off as Canadians because it was obvious it would all be easier that way given the antipathy in the Arab world about the war and the US. I wouldn’t have gone if not for the peer pressure, I’d been there prior anyway.

I'm Jerry Bremer, and I will fix all the problems in Iraq!

I'm trailer trash Lynndie England.

^^You just know she's 100% MAGA these days.

I'm James Dale Guckert, aka Jeff Gannon.

Sorry, R17 - I didn't notice you'd already covered that.

Okay, then - I'm 'Blood For Oil!'

I'm George W. Bush.

You assholes miss me now, don't you???

I'm online politics before social media took off.

Blogs were relevant.

I'm the gift of retrospect, thinking at the time that Dubya's administration was as bad as it could get, only to fuck around and find out that things could get much worse, yuugely worse.

[Quote] Who would have thought that I was NOT going to be THE worst.

He actually was — so far. Trump might be worse in the redo if he’s able to slither back into office in November, but besides ruining the SCOTUS, he wasn’t as bad as Dumbya. He was too selfish, lazy and incompetent.

Bush wasted trillions of taxpayer dollars, and led to 35,000 US casualties, including more than 4,000 deaths. And the Iraqi people suffered enormously, tens or hundreds of thousands of casualties.

Bush was never elected. He usurped an office he had not one in 2000 and 2004. That's why republicans are so big on claiming fraud now. Because almost all of it comes from them.

Remember the two key Republican tactics were perfected under Bush: blame the Democrats for what you are doing; and create a problem and then blame it on the left.

I'm the You Tube, I am a video platform on the innerweb and play fun songs like "It's Time to Bad Saddam"

I'm the Supreme Court ending the vote count because....something...something....it's taking too long? Sure - let's go with that.

I'm Florida - I threw out tens of thousands of Dem registration right before the election to make sure Republicans had an advantage.

I'm New Orleans - I was underwater and no help was sent for days because Bush put in charge someone with no experience and no business leading up that department.

I'm the semen stains in Gaddafi's secret Condoleezza Rice photo album.

I'm Scooter Libby

I'm the huge social engineering experiment called charter schools. All the evidence supporting me is faked, in fact chaos erupted and thousands of kids got NO education because their schools were scams. But I will be imposed on the whole country because destroying public education has been the republican goal ever since the New Deal.

Sine DINOs like Rahm Emmanuel will fall in with me on that.

The charter schools disrupting loyalties in marginal neighborhoods will cause an epidemic of youth violence and the first increases in violent crime in 20 years, but we will blame it on the Democrats and nobody will lsee the connection between republican for profit schools and what happened.

I'm hanging chads, dimpled chads, and pregnant chads from Florida's archaic Votomatic machines.

I'm letting in millions of Muslim immigrants so we can blame it on the Democrats in a decade or so.

I'm Medicare Prescription Part D. We are supposed to reduce costs for seniors, but because we allow drug companies to raise prices at will, within 3 years they will have raised prices enough to get as much money from seniors as they were before it was passed...PLUS the government subsidy.

I'm teaching to the test, the new way of educating which failed miserably in Texas but will now be enforced nationwide.

I'm torture and third party renditions I will destroy America's leadership in the world.

...for nothing. And I will give Osama bin Laden more breathing room. It will take Obama to find him.

I'll be at a booth selling 'Freedom Fries' down at the Dixie Chicks CD burning this Thursday.

I'm "Now watch this drive!"

I'm the Pres who was satirised as the Wizard in Wicked for not being able to use my words right.

(They did also throw Reagan a bone with "Celebrated Heads of State and specially Great Communicators--did they have brains or knowledge? Don't make me laugh!")

I'm Fatass Jeb Bush, the President's brother and governor of Florida, the closest swing state in the country. Our elections are run by Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who is also chairman of my brother's campaign in Florida. I'm also possibly banging the bitch, but I'll never tell. No conflict of interest at all here. None. Those black voters that were illegally caged in Jacksonville? Those registered Democrats tossed off the voter rolls? That stupid butterfly ballot in Palm Beach County that resulted in Holocaust survivors voting for Nazi Pat Buchanan? We don't know how these unfortunate incidences happened.

Oh well, my brother won. No need to look into it. In 4 years, Ohio can do this....

R128 - yes, a lot of people don't realize some of the political overtones of Wicked - for me, it was obvious.

And that brings in traitor and fraud Kenneth Blackwell, whose wife is a fucking Democrat!

Love this thread because so many of us forgot how truly awful and destructive the Bush 2 years were.

8 years ending in economic collapse

And I'm the jet carrying one of the perpetrators of the 2004 fraud who will crash shy of the Cleveland airport, conveniently killing off an inside witness on his way to testify.