“I am Yahweh; that is My Name!  I will not give My glory to anyone else, nor share My praise with carved idols.” (Isaiah 42: 8)

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The Washington Post—Stephen Bannon takes fierce aim at George W. Bush in wake of speech seen as critical of President Trump:

Former White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon served up a searing attack Friday night on former president George W. Bush, saying Bush “didn’t understand anything he was talking about” in a speech the day before that was widely seen as a rebuke of Donald Trump’s presidency.

“He embarrassed himself,” Bannon said in a dinnertime address at the convention banquet of the California Republican Party. “The speechwriter wrote a highfalutin speech. It’s clear he didn’t understand anything he was talking about. … He has no earthly idea whether he’s coming or going, just like it was when he was president of the United States.”

[George W. Bush comes out of retirement to deliver a veiled rebuke of Trump]

Bannon — who has declared war on the Republican establishment since leaving the White House — went on to apologize to any “Bush folks” in the audience before asserting that “there has not been a more destructive presidency than George Bush’s.”

Conservatives have been critical of Bush’s presidency for spending increases and an expansion of foreign entanglements.

Bannon’s broadside was prompted by a rare political speech that Bush delivered Thursday in which he warned of threats to U.S. democracy and a decay of civic engagement.

At a New York forum sponsored by the Bush presidential center, Bush offered a blunt assessment of a political system corrupted by “conspiracy theories and outright fabrication” in which nationalism has been “distorted into nativism.”

“We’ve seen our discourse degraded by casual cruelty,” Bush said during a 16-minute address at “The Spirit of Liberty” event. “Bullying and prejudice in our public life sets a national tone and provides permission for cruelty and bigotry. The only way to pass along civic values is to first live up to them.”

[The Fix: George W. Bush’s anti-Trump manifesto, annotated]

Bush did not mention Trump by name, and former aides emphasized that his message echoed words he has spoken before. But the fact that a former president was sounding the alarm about American values and the United States’ role in the world at a time when Trump has unsettled allies abroad and provoked intense political backlash at home injected Bush’s remarks with greater urgency.

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SnyderTalk Comment:

Fact 1: W’s speech was not an anti-Trump manifesto.  That description is an establishment media attempt to expand or shore up the anti-Trump wing of the Republican Party.  Remember, the establishment media hated W.  They still hate him.  In their world, George Bush (meaning W) is synonymous with stupidity and incompetence.

Fact 2: It was “a highfalutin speech”, as Bannon said.

Fact 3: Bannon was incorrect when he said “there has not been a more destructive presidency than George Bush’s,” but he’s not far off the mark.  Obama was worse.  So was Carter, but W wasn’t a lot better.  Al Gore would have been an unmitigated disaster.  Compared to him, W looks like a knight in shining armor.

Fact 4: We have passed the point where high-minded speeches on amorphous topics with little or no focus on reality can have a positive effect.  Flapping gums are not good substitutes for meaningful action.

Fact 5: Our enemies’ rejection of democracy and Western values are not the problems.  Their unbridled evil is.

Fact 6: We can’t compromise with them.  Their savagery is unacceptable.  They must change their ways or else.

Fact 7: W failed to address the North Korea and Iran issues.  President Trump is doing the job that W should have done.

Fact 8: Obama deserves blame, too, but W had 8 years to get the job done.

Fact 9: No president is perfect.  Some presidents are worse than others.  W will not go down in history as a great president.

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“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17: 22-24)

See “His Name is Yahweh”.