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Kevin Robillard

Politico Takes Cheeky Swipe at GW Bush with Headline 'People Surprised I Can Read'

By Ken Shepherd | April 15, 2013 | 15:16

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Politico's Kevin Robillard published a short piece this morning about former president George W. Bush and how he "is glad his paintings are confounding his critics." You may recall that last month when Bush family email accounts were hacked and private correspondence was published online, it was discovered that the 43rd chief executive of the United State has taken to painting and that, for an amateur who's just started at it, he's actually pretty good.

Citing an interview that Bush gave the Dallas Morning News, Robillard noted that the former president says he takes "great delight in bursting stereotypes" and snarked that "people are surprised" that he took up painting but then again, "some people are surprised I can even read." That was, of course, a swipe at hard-left critics who revel in mocking Bush's intelligence, but Politico editors decided to go the juvenile route and use it as a headline.

Politico Disparages Heritage as 'Uninspiring' & Discredits DeMint as a 'Fighter, Not a Thinker'

By Ryan Robertson | December 07, 2012 | 16:58

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Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) announced Thursday that he will be trading his Senate seat in January to assume the helm of the Heritage Foundation. Covering the surprising development in its Friday edition, Politico dismissed DeMint as a mediocre politician with an undistinguished record who is moving on to captain a conservative think tank that has become "predictable, uninspiring, and often lacking in influence."

Manu Raju and Scott Wong mocked DeMint's lack of credentials in their front-page story titled, "DeMint Departure Fallout." They described him as a popular senator who has actually "accomplished very little" in Congress because he "wasn't a legislator" and having "no signature laws to his name." Of course, this betrays an inside-the-Beltway way of thinking about success in Congress. Conservatives dedicated to shrinking the size and scope of the federal government are not going to be be known for legislative accomplishments, which more often than not are about expanding the federal government's size and scope, not dismantling old bureaucracies.