Remember…Bush era smugness?

I’m reading an interesting albeit aggravating article in GQ by a former George W. Bush speechwriter named Matt Lattimer who has decided that now is the time to come out and admit that the former president’s financial policymakers did not know what they were doing and that working on behalf of the Republic revolution and the Bush White House was a disappointment, “not at all what I envisioned.”

And yet, this guy still makes room for a jab at Jimmy Carter, which is pretty funny, considering Bush appears to have been ten times worse a president than Carter. Carter for all his faults, inherited a bad economy along with the after-effects of bloated defense spending on the unpopular Vietnam war.  Plus, he happened to be in office during an oil crisis well beyond his own control at a time when the United States had fewer sources of oil than we do today.

Bush, on the other hand, inherited a relatively stable economy–the tech bubble had burst, but it certainly did not bring down the whole economy. There were no major defense issues facing the United States when Bush became president, and the U.S. actually had a budget surplus. It seems really hard to remember that fact, but when Bill Clinton left office, things were pretty good.

So maybe, maybe, this Bush speechwriter could show a bit of humility about his own disastorous former boss, but no:

First the administration had had to seek out Carter’s help, and then the White House had been schooled on the economy by the president who’d brought you gas lines, an energy crisis, and high unemployment.

Why don’t they just start by saying “I’m sorry, America”?