Jeff Koopersmith introduces you to Jeffrey Shapiro, another hard-right spinmeister from the Murdoch Wall Street Journal who whines about America's treatment of Bush the day after Obama is elected President – and merits more than a modicum of scrutiny.
November 7, 2008 – Geneva (apj.us) – Most of us have never heard of Jeffrey Scott Shapiro, and although he attended the University of Florida, he still writes a decent line. On the day Barack Obama was elected President, the Wall Street Journal (See Rupert Murdoch) chose to publish an outlandishly immature column penned by Shapiro. His op-ed is entitled "The Treatment of Bush Has Been a Disgrace."
I agree. Mr. Bush has been treated far to fairly. He should have been pilloried.
I must add that Shapiro also wrote another piece explaining why the Democratic Party "needed" Senator Joe Lieberman. At the behest of my former Georgetown ally, Pamela Harriman, I was foolish enough to give and raise money for Lieberman after lunching with him and a few others at Harriman's house in Washington. So I have standing. I don't think I've ever made such a mistake. I point this out only to make the case that Shapiro may be out of his mind.
Yet that's a different issue, although hopefully, today, Senator Harry Reid will strip Lieberman of his committee chairmanship and push him over the aisle into never-never land where he belongs.
Shapiro wonders what America's enemies must be thinking because 70% of us would rather that Mr. Magoo had been president for the past eight years.
Shapiro, who bills himself as an investigative reporter – (See Kobe Bryant) – and worked for John Kerry as late as 2004, is all aflutter about 12 thousand people signing a petition to name an Oceanside, California sewage plant after President Bush. He calls such fun-loving shenanigans proof of "classless disrespect many Americans have shown the president".
Classless? Ah, Shapiro's background shows its ugly face. Does he mean that it would have been more "classy" to name a university after George DumbBellYou? Classy – now there’s the word of a true sophisticate.
As one of the Liberals who has defended President Bush often excusing his actions as simply and excusably a result of the normal brain damage exhibited by a dry drunk – and blaming satanic mysterious billionairre Dick Cheney for most of the terror wrought during the past 7 plus years, I have to laugh out loud at Shapiro's adolescent view of America and the presidency.
What are our enemies thinking? I can tell you. They are jealous, because most of them live in nations where they'd he hung, shot, or stoned for criticizing their leaders.
I assume that's what Shapiro prefers for America.
Shapiro bemoans that fact that Bush has "endured relentless attacks" from the left and has been "abandoned from the right”. Yet in his editorial, he does not ask why. He merely excuses the horror of the Bush presidency as, get this – the price the President paid for “trying to work with both Democrats and Republicans”.
What’s Shapiro smoking?
Jeff Scott S. tells us Bush “reached out to voters who supported his opponent, John Kerry, and said, "Today, I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent. To make this nation stronger and better, I will need your support, and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust."
This man actually believes that that statement was a little segment was from the heart. Hate to tell you Shapiro but almost all politicians say similar things when celebrating a victory.
It’s called political sense.
Bush obviously didn’t mean it – or forgot from the brain thing. He did little or nothing to reach out to anyone or anything except the brush around his “ranch”.
Shapiro goes on to make me laugh writing “Those bipartisan efforts have been met with crushing resistance from both political parties.”
Huh? Was I asleep for the past seven years?
Then Jeffrey Scott delivers this lance: “The president's original Supreme Court choice of Harriet Miers alarmed Republicans, while his final nomination of Samuel Alito angered Democrats. His solutions to reform the immigration system alienated traditional conservatives, while his refusal to retreat in Iraq has enraged liberals who have unrealistic expectations about the challenges we face there.”
What? Am I living on some other planet? Shapiro must be gunning for the right to pen the Bush biography. It’s got to be that!
First, Harriet Miers was little more than lightweight political operative – and a bumbling one. Putting her on the Supreme Court would be tantamount to putting Ed Meese in charge of Justice Department. (What am I saying?!)
Bush’s plans to “reform” the immigration system alienated neocons because he didn’t plan to shoot Mexican teens in his head as they crossed the border to flip burgers for McDonalds.
Liberals were not enraged so much by Bush’s refusal to “retreat” from Iraq, they were justly furious that the White House had lied through its teeth to convince Democrats to vote for this vicious war that has murdered a million Iraqi civilians – and 5,000 of our American kids. Shapiro is on the brink of dimwitship.
Grab your air-violin and read this Shapiro fantasy: “It seems that no matter what Mr. Bush does, he is blamed for everything. He remains despised by the left while continuously disappointing the right.”
Aw – that’s called Cheney-fied arrogance Jeffrey. It always results in being despised by everyone – except the dumbest of us. Shapiro has it wrong – nearly 80% of Americans despise Mr. Bush – it has nothing to do with party loyalties.
Shapiro has decided that many of our nation’s problems existed before Bush came into office, or are beyond his control. I’ll buy number two. It seems as though everything is beyond President Bush’s control – but not Vice President Cheney’s.
As for the problems existing before Bush 43 – well I have to say this – SEVEN YEARS. He had seven years to fix them.
Shapiro wants Americans to be less divisive. How can he ask that of us when we’ve learned from the best Hitlerian “Big Liars” on earth. Between Bush and Cheney they make Nixon look like a martyr.
We have all witnessed first hand how the Bush White House “solved” the problems it did confront – poorly, badly, and worse.
Yet Shapiro chooses to blame the Congress – had they only given the President a pass – an E-Ticket to World War III “… he would actually have had a fighting chance of solving them.” What a lunatic statement.
Shapiro says more. He quotes Bush’s 2004 victory speech: I’m not sure if that was the trumped up one on the aircraft carrier or the election one. I am too lazy to look it up – and what’s the difference, no one believed either.
Bush said, whenever: ”We have one country, one Constitution and one future that binds us. And when we come together and work together, there is no limit to the greatness of America."
Ah. Well he certainly proved that. He trashed the Constitution, flaunted the law, and allowed the weasels beside him to operate without consequence – which they did at full speed. I do agree that coming together is good.
Mr. Shapiro then flees to Harry Truman as an example of a President whose approval rating was down to 22% just before he left office. He tells us that Truman’s bad grades – fifty years ago – were negated by – I can’t believe it – A Wall Street Journal Poll that “found” Truman was ranked the 7th most popular president in history. Well of course – American’s can’t remember beyond 28 years. He would have to be seventh.
Outlandish!
Shapiro pretends he believes that “our country will recognize the hardship President Bush faced these past eight years — and how extraordinary it was that he accomplished what he did in the wake of the September 11 attacks.”
That might be true if Mickey Hershkowitz rewrites history for W, like he did for Prescott Bush.
However, I do agree. I feel that simply fixing an election in 2000 and then winning again in 2004 was extraordinary! Then, to think Bush survived for two terms without being impeached – another extraordinary accomplishment.
While Shapiro thinks that our treatment of poor President Bush is “nothing less than a disgrace”, I think it’s a tremendous example of our delightful open democracy. For anyone to believe that Mr. Bush was anything but one of the worst presidents – no all time world leaders in history, is almost insane.
The truth is simply the opposite of Mr. Shapiro’s naïve attempt to resurrect a bamboozler. He believes that President Bush “is not to blame for all these problems.”
All these problems? Which ones? Of course, Mr. Bush is not to blame for every problem America faces – only most of them including the graves of more than a million innocents, the deaths and decapitations of hundreds of babies, and the unleashing of indescribable greed on Wall Street and Main Street. I’ll give him a pass on the rest.
“[He] tried his hardest,” weeps Shapiro. Well toi bad. This isn’t a high school football game – it is people’s lives.
Wait, there’s one more guffaw:
“Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty — a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House.”
If this guy Shapiro wasn’t so clueless, I’d help pay his psychiatrist bills.
Jeff Koopersmith is an internationally renowned political consultant, opinion research authority and policy analyst. He has lobbied for causes including the alternative fuel sector and women's health, and is an expert on the international real estate market. He lives in Philadelphia, Washington and Geneva.