When Democratic leaders pass away, the liberal media prefer to treat them like saints and pretend rougher points didn’t exist. But that standard doesn’t apply to Republicans ones as the largely liberal panel on ABC’s This Week demonstrated on Sunday, where faux Republican commentator Matthew Dowd decried people who wanted to “canonize” the late George H.W. Bush, who passed away Friday night.
After touting Bush as “the Forrest Gump of the last 50 years of the 20th century. Because, he’s almost at every single moment of change in the country”, Dowd lamented how people treated the former President’s memory so fairly. “[O]ne thing I would like to say is, I think often in the times when we have these deaths, we're way too quick to canonize these people. George Herbert Walker Bush was a great man. He did great things, but he also had flaws,” he opined.
“George Bush was a good man,” Dowd continued, “but he was also somebody who used brass knuckles in a political campaign. He’s the one who did the Willie Horton ad. He’s the one who did certain things in political campaigns.”
Dowd was clearly channeling Dan Rather with that statement because, while the Bush campaign did produce an ad grilling Michael Dukakis for his weekend furloughs for murderers program, the campaign did not produce the Willie Horton ad. Though, there’s nothing wrong with the premise of the ad. Under Dukakis, Horton, who stabbed a gas-station attendant to death, was allowed out of prison and raped a woman.
“There's questions about him on Iran/Contra. He’s a good man but I think it’s a lesson to learn: let's not canonize these people. Let’s make them human beings,” Dowd continued. “Or define them by any one incident,” host and Clinton lackey George Stephanopoulos added.
Veteran reporter Cokie Roberts chimed in to back up Dowd’s declarations, suggesting: “It’s more admirable to be human than to be a bronze statue. Because it's easy for bronze statues to do good things. It's hard for humans.” She also noted that it was important to do the same with the country’s founding fathers.
“He had faults. And one of them was on the '64 Civil Rights Act, he opposed. And one of the reasons I opposed George Bush fiercely was because he was not a champion at that time,” disgraced former DNC chairwoman Donna Brazile added. She then admitted that “he did support civil rights by the appointment of people like Colin Powell, and Condoleezza Rice, and so many others.”
This is not how a Democratic president would be remembered by the liberal media.
The transcript is below, click "expand: to read:
ABC’s This Week
December 2, 2018
9:54:12 a.m. Eastern [1 minute and 50 seconds](…)
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You worked for his son?
MATTHEW DOWD: Yeah, I did work for his son. And I worked for Lloyd Bentsen who beat him in 1970 when he ran for the Senate race, and then Lloyd Bentsen lost in 1988 as vice president in Texas in that time.
I think that is the common word you hear in this. Is just “decency”. He was a decent person. He was a good person. He was a kind person in this.
To me, he’s almost like the Forrest Gump of the last 50 years of the 20th century. Because, he’s almost at every single moment of change in the country: the Soviet Union, World War II, the CIA, the U.N., the wars, his son, which he had a tremendous impact on.
But one thing I would like to say is, I think often in the times when we have these deaths, we're way too quick to canonize these people. George Herbert Walker Bush was a great man. He did great things, but he also had flaws. He was a human being. He made mistakes. And he was humble enough to acknowledge those mistakes. There was a serious of things along the way. You can point sometimes in his political campaigns.
George Bush was a good man, but he was also somebody who used brass knuckles in a political campaign. He’s the one who did the Willie Horton ad. He’s the one who did certain things in political campaigns. He – He – There's questions about him on Iran/Contra. He’s a good man but I think it’s a lesson to learn: let's not canonize these people. Let’s make them human beings.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Or define them by any one incident.
DOWD: And let's make them human beings that do good things and are good people.
COKIE ROBERTS: Because, you know, the truth is that It's more admirable—obviously this about the founding fathers. It’s more admirable to be human than to be a bronze statue. Because it's easy for bronze statues to do good things. It's hard for humans.
DONNA BRAZILE: He had faults. And one of them was on the '64 Civil Rights Act, he opposed. And one of the reasons I opposed George Bush fiercely was because he was not a champion at that time. In other ways, he did support civil rights by the appointment of people like Colin Powell, and Condoleezza Rice, and so many others.
(…)
