Upon leaving office in 2009, former President George W. Bush pledged to reserve criticism of his successor, despite the fact that Obama, a junior Senator from Chicago, had been openly and extremely critical of his presidency over the preceding couple of years. In fact, when pressed on the issue in an interview with Sean Hannity in 2014, Bush said simply, “I don’t think it’s good for the country to have a former president undermine a current president…I think it’s bad for the presidency, for that matter.”
That said, apparently Bush isn’t convinced that the same courtesy afforded to President Obama should be extended to the current administration. In speaking with Matt Luaer of NBC, the former President took several subtle jabs at the current Trump administration on everything from Russia to immigration to his contentious relationship with the media.
On Russian involvement in the 2016 election, Bush seemed to lend credibility to the conspiracy theories of the disaffected left by saying that “we all need answers” while suggesting that a “special prosecutor” may be warranted. Per The Hill:
“I think we all need answers…I’m not sure the right avenue to take. I am sure, though, that that question needs to be answered,” Bush said to NBC’s “Today” host Matt Lauer.
U.S. intelligence agencies believe Russian-backed hackers attempted to sway the election for Trump, while multiple news reports say that Trump campaign officials had “constant” contact with Russian intelligence during the election.
Bush said he trusted Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to select a special prosecutor to investigate the possible ties between Russian officials and Trump’s team saying “if [Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr] were to recommend a special prosecutor, then it’d have a lot more credibility with me.”
Of course, no such calls for a special prosecutor were made by Obama or Bush when actual, tangible evidence surfaced that Hillary Clinton knowingly violated multiple federal laws.
But the jabs from Bush didn’t end there…
On freedom of religion: “I think it’s very important for all of us to recognize that one of our great strengths is for people to be able to worship the way they want to or not worship at all. A bedrock of our freedom is the right to worship freely.”
On Trump’s immigration ban: “I am for an immigration policy that’s welcoming and upholds the law.”
On the media: “I consider the media to be indispensable to democracy…Power can be very addictive. It can be corrosive, and it’s important for the media to hold people to account.”
Of course, as Trump has repeatedly said, he has no problem with the media holding his administration “to account”…the problem lies with the media’s complete inability to hold ALL politicians “to account” in an unbiased way, irrespective of political affiliation.
Meanwhile, apparently we weren’t the only ones to note the hypocrisy in some of GW’s comments…
The same George W wanted to jail NYT”s reporter James Risen for reporting about W’s use of warantless wiretaps? https://t.co/mayio7DBAR
— Lizzy (@lizzie363) February 27, 2017
At no time did any major media outlet call W out on this massive steaming pile of hypocrisy which is why the public doesn’t TRUST the media! https://t.co/bhLSl4m4Ro
— Lizzy (@lizzie363) February 27, 2017
…though we suspect you won’t hear the same criticisms from his new best friends in the mainstream media, you know, the guys that would have done anything to undermine his credibility just 8 short years ago.
2005: George W Bush is a pillaging, torturing war criminal who let a city drown
2017: I may have disagreed with Bush but he was A Good Man™
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 27, 2017
via http://ift.tt/2lOU7Gg Tyler Durden