It's more than a bit strange that the liberal media would lament Donald Trump for somehow dishonoring the late George H. W. Bush at his funeral because he crossed his arms and didn't smile. But then NBC really rolled out the rotten fruit from the Left to throw at Bush's legacy.
On Wednesday's Late Night with Seth Meyers, aired early Thursday, NBC host Meyers provided far-left British journalist Mehdi Hasan an unchallenged forum to excoriate former President George H.W. Bush for the deaths of Iraqis and Panamanians, as well as the Willie Horton campaign issue and Bush's reaction to the AIDS epidemic.
Meyers brought up an article Hasan published, titled "The Ignored Legacy of George H.W. Bush: War Crimes, Racism, and Obstruction of Justice," in which he accused President Bush of running a "racist election campaign" and of committing "war crimes" in Iraq. Meyers posed:
SETH MEYERS: George H.W. Bush passed away, and you wrote an article for The Intercept, basically a full accounting of his record, and one of your criticisms was, when politicians pass away in the United States, the coverage is sort of glowing. It's all their best qualities and none of the things they did wrong.
He then asked the British journalist if such treatment of political figures during mourning is "unique to Americans." Hasan said no, it happened in Britain with Margaret Thatcher.
MEHDI HASAN: A lot of Iraqis died on his watch. A lot of Panamanians died on his watch. A lot of black people saw the racist ad campaign, Willie Horton, that he ran in 1988. A lot of people died in the AIDS crisis that he didn't really pay much attention to -- in the War on Drugs that he ramped up.
He then asserted that the press should respect the passing of a president, but also "respect facts, history, what actually happened." The liberal audience cheered wildly.
Meyers gave absolutely zero pushback to Hasan's grossly negative take on Bush's presidency and instead followed up by asking about the tendency to compare Bush to President Donald Trump. Meyers suggested Bush wasn't really as civil as people are now claiming he was because they want to believe he was so much better than Trump.
Hasan said the coverage would have a different tone if Bush had died during the Obama presidency. Now he looks good by comparison:
HASAN: We all look at him and say why can't George H. W. Bush be president? He wasn't nuts, he wasn't a crazy racist in the same way Donald Trump is, he's not a narcissist, he's not a draft dodger, he served his country, he didn't have bone spurs. Fair enough. [Laughter] Trump makes Bush look good Trump makes everyone look good. I don't think we should lower the bar. It's the presidency of the United States.
He said we can't lower the bar that Trump gets credit for not tweeting or drooling during the funeral. If that's the standard, "I have a six-year-old daughter at home, she's ready for the Oval Office." Meyers laughed.
