Office of George W. Bush Says Former President Will Not Make an Endorsement for 2024 Election
“President Bush retired from presidential politics years ago”
Now that former Vice President Dick Cheney has said that he is voting for Kamala Harris, all eyes have been on George W. Bush, but the office of the former president has said that he will not be making any endorsements.
It’s probably a wise idea to just stay out of it.
NBC News reports:
Former President George W. Bush has no plans to endorse in the election
Former President George W. Bush does not plan to endorse a candidate for president, his office told NBC News on Saturday.
When asked whether the former president or his wife, Laura, would endorse a candidate or make public how they will vote, Bush’s office said “no.”
“President Bush retired from presidential politics years ago,” the office added.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign declined to comment but pointed to the campaign’s Republican outreach efforts.
Bush’s former vice president, Dick Cheney, announced on Friday that he would back Harris in the November election.
“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said in a statement. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He can never be trusted with power again.”
Some people on the left really wanted this endorsement for Harris, which is kind of hilarious.
They are begging for the endorsement of George W. Bush now.
But sure, Kamala is cruising to victory or something. pic.twitter.com/MAG7oTwTnX
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) September 7, 2024
The far left site the Daily Kos, which spent years calling George W. Bush a war criminal, is actually angry that Bush has declined to endorse Harris:
George W. Bush shown to be unpresidential as usual
This from NBC News today when it inquired about George W. Bush’s possible endorsement of a presidential candidate in the 2024 election, an election that could decide the fate of democracy and freedom for American.
When asked whether the former president or his wife, Laura, would endorse a candidate or make public how they will vote, Bush’s office said “no.”
“President Bush retired from presidential politics years ago,” The office added.
So, George W. “I Am A Big Patriot” Bush has declined to join other Republicans in fighting against the Trump brand of fascism…
He retired from presidential politics years ago? Oh, bullshit, he also was MIA in the presidential leadership role when he did occupy the highest office in our nation. His faults as a president are legion.
Anyone who had Democrats seeking the endorsement of George W. Bush on your 2024 Bingo card, please come and collect your winnings.
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Comments
Oh dear, I was so looking forward to his endorsement
the idiotic and incompetent Bush handed us Obama. I’m shocked
the funny thing is , the next time the Bushies get a nominee, they will demand that Trump endorse their candidate. That’s the way the Bushies roll
they actually hold out hope that they will get their toy back
never happen
I think 2022 was the last gasp of air from the House of Bush. W and JEB! tried to get JEB!’s son George P Bush into office, against the very popular Republican Attorney General in TX. Paxton defeated P in the primary 68-32. Thank you W for not getting yourself into the this election, following the steps of your dad, Reagan, etc.
Bush 2 was one of our worst, “The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don’t represent peace. They represent evil and war.
When we think of Islam we think of a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. Billions of people find comfort and solace and peace. And that’s made brothers and sisters out of every race — out of every race.
America counts millions of Muslims amongst our citizens, and Muslims make an incredibly valuable contribution to our country. Muslims are doctors, lawyers, law professors, members of the military, entrepreneurs, shopkeepers, moms and dads. And they need to be treated with respect. In our anger and emotion, our fellow Americans must treat each other with respect.”
09/17/2001Bush 2 was one of our worst, “The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don’t represent peace. They represent evil and war.
When we think of Islam we think of a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. Billions of people find comfort and solace and peace. And that’s made brothers and sisters out of every race — out of every race.
America counts millions of Muslims amongst our citizens, and Muslims make an incredibly valuable contribution to our country. Muslims are doctors, lawyers, law professors, members of the military, entrepreneurs, shopkeepers, moms and dads. And they need to be treated with respect. In our anger and emotion, our fellow Americans must treat each other with respect.”
09/17/2001
The posts here at LI – and events across the world as Muslims behave as Muslims – attest to the dreck being fed to us by our “leaders” about Islam.
No matter where in the world, no matter the point in time, one of life’s constants – find Muslims, find trouble.
What part of “ Kill them wherever you come upon them and drive them out of the places from which they have driven you out.” do they not understand?
(Quran 2:191)
Speaking as an American of South Chinese ancestry . . . “What do y’all mean by “we“, round-eye?
Subotai Bahadur
I am undecided and was waiting to see what he would do. Now I guess it’s Kamala since she got the all important Cheney endorsements.
George Bush’s stock has steadily gone down since the day he stood on top of the ruins of the World Trade Center.
So his not endorsing a candidate is like the old quip – if the phone isn’t ringing that’s me not calling.
Or, you could say, how can we miss you if you won’t go away?
For all the globalist, forever war, neocon, big corporate, big gov’t supporters this should serve as final notice of where the most viable proponents of these beliefs stand.
They’d rather defend the borders of Ukraine than our own. They’d rather be seen as ‘compassionate’ than make the decision to put the interests US Citizens above those of other Nations. They’d rather keep their ‘friends’ on the DC cocktail circuit and in the establishment than risk losing them. All about appearances for these folks and they believe they will be safe from the Cray Cray they are unleashing behind the walls of their gated communities and toney enclaves. They know you won’t be and they don’t care.
In the end they refuse to support a candidate who will disrupt the emerging oligarchy and the big corporate/big gov’t bureaucracy that are wrecking the Nation by open borders, substitution of DEI/ID politics for merit, swapping trans/woke ideology for cultural norms. They are at minimum tacitly choosing speech codes, censorship, erosion of our Constitutional rights, huge deficits, outsourcing of US manufacturing, erosion of the middle class in favor of continuing the 50 year trendline of lower real wages for average workers, an even higher concentration of wealth in the top 20% from asset bubbles fueled by low to zero interest rates and crippling inflation.
I am not defending the war in Iraq by saying this
George W Bush is an old man with no relevance. That said he did not censor the internet when he had the chance, and did act on small government principles as president just with the extreme hypocrisy of war time spending.
Bush also wasn’t the man who made free trade deals that was Clinton, Bush imposed tariffs in order to try and protect American jobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_United_States_steel_tariff . He didn’t rip of the Clinton trade deals but to pretend Bush was somehow the one who did trade deals is to pretend Clinton never existed.
The big mistakes of the Bush administration was he thought overthrowing Saddam Hussein would lead to democratization of the middle east and deradicalization following American withdrawal, and he championed small government in a way that allowed leftists to start a massive purge of conservatives from the institutions of the country.
He was never a free trade absolutist (he imposed tariffs just like Trump does with little if anything to distinguish the two of them in that way besides rhetoric) and he was responsible for tax cuts.
Failing to remember the Bush years accurately means learning the wrong lessons. He simply wasn’t the person you described.
Above I am describing his actions in today’s political reality which absolutely fits…..but let’s go back to the ‘small govt principles’ you claimed and see if the actions of the Bush Administration match up:
1. TSA has 47,000 Federal employee which didn’t exist prior to the Bush Administration.
2. Patriot Act and all the govt overreach downstream of this horribly anti liberty decision
3. Creation of the inept and unnecessary Dept of Homeland Security
4. Iraq War policy, allowed AMB Brenner to fire the Iraqi Army which largely triggered/enabled the Insurgency b/c the suddenly unemployed Colonels, fearful of being shot after the political purge, took off with the weapons, ammunition and ordnance.
Bush came into office with a budget surplus, A dent level of $5.6 Trillion and a debt to GDP ratio of 55%. He left office with huge deficits, doubled the National Debt and increased the dent to GDP ratio to 68%.
Let’s not forget the role of the Bush Administration in the bailouts for banks in 08. Eff that crap. They allowed their Banking Buddies and Financial Services Friends to keep profits private but burden the public with the losses. That’s on top of Bush era regulators dropping the damn ball in the first place.
Then there’s the ongoing costs of Iraq Afghan Wars after their ‘end’. Worn out equipment, deferred Naval investment to support ground war which we are feeling now in a big way. Plus the VA costs to support the Veterans of those Wars. Then add in the boondoggle DoD program failures and over promised/under performing systems. Still feeling those as well.
All in all we ended up with more gov’t, less freedom, more bureaucracy, less liberty, higher baseline costs of Federal spending, bigger deficits, wrecked economy at the end of the Bush years. Doesn’t seem like a principled small govt conservative to me.
^^^ Yep. This.
Don’t forget the FISA and wiretapping abuses.
I would add going into Iraq in the first place – which had what to do with 9/11? Iraq had no nuclear weapons, fought wars with Iran and was a balance of power in the Middle East – which is where now? IMO we paid a very high price for Bush wanting to outdo his father in Iraq.
W was the archetypal Concussionate Conservative.. And this move is pure dick. sO much for Reagan’s 11th Commandment.
Yep. Stiff arming not just Trump but the vast majority of the GoP primary voters whose support made him the nominee. This comes AFTER the base supported W in some very tough moments in both ’00 during the campaign, during his 1st term of office, re-election campaign and 2nd term. Not cool at all, very damn selfish and petulant IMO.
I’m sure all those ‘Ahoy, Matey’ establishment cheerleader types looking to book another trip on the National Review cruise ship so they can listen to burn out has beens like Bill Kristol and Jonah Goldberg and try to demand policy preferences that are two decades or more out of date will continue to be not just butthurt but flouncing about it.
The ground has shifted under their feet and the old guard got their sinecure and grift interrupted. They remain PO that they are no longer at the center of ‘conservative’ or GoP policy ideas/philosophy. The GoP has become much more center/right populist with a very healthy dash of libertarian skepticism about the trustworthiness of gov’t bureaucracy. We don’t view any govt agency/Dept as inherently ‘good’ or on ‘our side’ any longer.
“1. TSA has 47,000 Federal employee which didn’t exist prior to the Bush Administration.”
Being checked for weapons by professionals who are accountable for their failure if you sneak them through is a small price to pay for a nation the size of the United States being secure against airline hijackers. Waiting on line is annoying. In no way is that a loss of freedom
2. “Patriot Act and all the govt overreach downstream of this horribly anti liberty decision”
I agree and think war measures should be repealed.
3. “Creation of the inept and unnecessary Dept of Homeland Security”
Which was made that way during the Obama years. Leftist protest was extreme during the Bush years yet the Bush Dept never used any power or force against them.
4. ” Iraq War policy, allowed AMB Brenner to fire the Iraqi Army which largely triggered/enabled the Insurgency b/c the suddenly unemployed Colonels, fearful of being shot after the political purge, took off with the weapons, ammunition and ordnance.”
I agree in addition to being poorly thought out and something that should never have happened the Iraq War was handled poorly.
“Bush came into office with a budget surplus, A dent level of $5.6 Trillion and a debt to GDP ratio of 55%. He left office with huge deficits, doubled the National Debt and increased the dent to GDP ratio to 68%.”
I agree his war time spending was ruinous as I already said. It was at least better than Obama’s spending.
“Let’s not forget the role of the Bush Administration in the bailouts for banks in 08. Eff that crap. They allowed their Banking Buddies and Financial Services Friends to keep profits private but burden the public with the losses. That’s on top of Bush era regulators dropping the damn ball in the first place.”
The banks paid back the Federal Government, failure to do that would have allowed the economy to be hit a lot harder than it actually was, and I think you will find a lot of those bonuses aren’t what was reported.
“Then there’s the ongoing costs of Iraq Afghan Wars after their ‘end’. Worn out equipment, deferred Naval investment to support ground war which we are feeling now in a big way. Plus the VA costs to support the Veterans of those Wars. Then add in the boondoggle DoD program failures and over promised/under performing systems. Still feeling those as well.
All in all we ended up with more gov’t, less freedom, more bureaucracy, less liberty, higher baseline costs of Federal spending, bigger deficits, wrecked economy at the end of the Bush years. Doesn’t seem like a principled small govt conservative to me.”
I agree he did mishandle wars and those wars ruined many things.
To throw things back at you did he ever tell a college what to do? Or tell a school what it could or could not teach?
Did he ever like DeSantis tell privately owned corporations what they can or can’t require from their employees?
Small government isn’t just about “is the government hiring a professional to check for arms and explosives before someone boards an aircraft” it is also about what is the government not doing.
I could go on but in terms of use of government to influence and coerce people into doing what he wanted Bush never tried.
Danny
DHS (Dept of Homeland Security) is a creation of the Bush admin. Established as the ‘Office of Homeland Security’ headed by Tom Ridge under an EO in Oct of ’01. Then by formally by statute in Nov of ’02 by passage of the Homeland Security Act.
TSA …’professional’? YGBFKM those lard ass, out of shape wanna be tough guys/girls are not effective. Each year they dramatically fail routine testing by govt agents who pose as passengers and very successfully sneak all sorts of crap including loaded firearms through their ‘professional’ security.
The TSA required an outbound chartered flight from Atlanta of already checked, screened and sequestered or nothing but US Military personnel returning to Iraq from leave to go back through screening and take our damn boots off and the rest of the BS. Nope these DMV rejects can kiss my ass and anyone who supports them is ill informed.
No Coercion by Bush? Bruh. get real. Try authorized torture as item one to refute that. Then let’s move on to the creation of the current govt surveillance state. Fed govt has flipping warehouses full of data collected on normal everyday Citizens using warrantless ‘wiretaps’.
This is the Bush admin who initiated claims the Feds could designate anyone, including US Citizens, as enemy combatants without any formal charges…just b/c the Feds say so
no evidence required and the Feds wouldn’t ever lie or make an error would they? Oh yeah they would.
Then there’s the abuses of process. Used all sorts of sneaky made up BS excuses to try and evade any scrutiny for these sorts of programs. Misused classification to preclude scrutiny from even govt IG who were supposed to be holding them accountable. Played games with FOIA requests to hide the dirty laundry.
See the TALON program for some examples of Cray Cray surveillance w/o warrants. How about misuse of the very limited authority to detain (briefly) a material witness. Yep Bush admin went wild on this one basically snatching up all sorts of folks w/o any probable cause much less a warrant then holding far longer than ‘briefly’.
I am surprised you don’t know all this history or that if you were aware that you would seek to ignore it.
Individual liberty goes in opposition to big govt and expanded govt power b/c it comes at the expense of individual liberty. Small govt isn’t about lower corporate tax rates and lower cap gains rates. Those are ancillary to the real fight; the one against ever expanding govt staffed by people whose loyalty is to the preservation of the Agency they work for.
Danny,
Economy. Nah. The ‘economy’ has not improved. The stock market has increased but that ain’t the economy. The way to measure whether the economy is good is to look at how ordinary folks are doing.
The residential real estate crisis was created in part by regulatory failure, capture and indifference. The other part was unmitigated greed by lenders, mortgage brokers, Banks, Financial Service industry. The remainder was fraudulent loan applications submitted by individuals who were themselves greedy but the system knew many/most of these loans were BS but processed them anyway.
Then we got TARP instead of telling the lenses the party was over. As a compromise I can see a bailout with a 15% write down of every mortgage not just the insolvent ones. Do that and offer govt support to the borrowers NOT the Banks and more folks could have been able to keep their homes v a collapse that resulted in rewarding the complicit fraud by the financial system.
Then we got zero interest rate environment which further rewarded the financial industry. Asset prices skyrocketed with their access to no cost funding. The shift in value of assets held by top 20% and especially top 5% since ’08 is nearly a hockey stick.
This is one reason the DJT candidacy became viable in ’16 until today despite the bewilderment of the ‘establishment’, Wall St, and DC crowd. They heaped scorn and derision on him and his supporters largely b/c they didn’t and still don’t understand why average folks are so PO.
Education. You do know he laid the groundwork for dramatically increasing Federal influence over education? All the nice sounding ‘no child left behind’ bricks paved the way so to speak.
A ‘small gov’t’ guy should have been expected to deliver on a smaller govt. Govt grew under his watch. Not just TSA or DoD but alk these agencies like education got more staffing and more money. The GWOT wasn’t the sole source of govt expansion or growth of bloated govt budgets and debt.
You are correct that Bush was a better POTUS than Obama. That’s a low bar my friend and you choosing Obama as the benchmark is very telling. Obama was until Biden the most radical Admin since FDR.
Bottom line is Bush was reformed drunk who was an irresponsible wild child until he stopped snorting coke and stopped drinking. Laura was very good influence on him and a superb First Lady. He was a nice guy but seemed concerned with folks approval of him instead of being a decisive leader. I don’t believe he intentionally believed he was undermining liberty so much as he was Dean into the neocon/establishment trap of ‘us v them’, ‘with us or against us’ and that all the things his admin did were necessary b/c if we didn’t do them ‘the terrorists would win’. He was a disappointment, an amiable guy led by Dick Cheney and his Father’s crowd of establishment DC insiders who had no interest in rolling back big govt in terms of size, scope, spending or powers. That would be antithetical to the DC establishment and denizens of the Acela corridor. Otherwise known as the ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’.
Danny: “Baaa, baaaaa, baaaaaaa! Look at me, I am a simple sheep being led off to slaughter. Come with me. Just ignore the cattle chutes and the uneducated weapons handlers who carry weapons you aren’t allowed to carry.
Let’s watch them search us, but ignore anyone who isn’t elderly or military.”
What a putz.
Danny, well said. Obviously, other do not like what you said.
It’s not a case of liking it as much as knowing it just isn’t true. CommoChief has fisked it adequately.
I once had it pointed out to me that Democrats are continually conniving to prune away our liberties, one after another, but it takes a Republican to hew down entire trees at once. W turned America into an legitimized police and surveillance state. He took (thinly) constitutionally-justified taxing agencies and turned them, with a stroke of his pen, into law enforcement agencies, despite the constitution granting zero police power to the federal government. He, more than any other president, handed the nation over into the hands of his daddy’s Swamp, betraying both his constituents and his country.
So who did Bush arrest purely for speech reasons? Democrats gave plenty of targets.
Bush also failed to behead anybody. Your cherry-picking technique is just sad.
One good thing about George W. was that after he was President he gracefully left presidential politics to others and the next generation. Unlike Clinton and Obama, he doesn’t keep projecting himself into the limelight to pontificate about everything currently going on. I respect him for that.
Because he k owes he’s responsible for the blood of our nations hero’s, and the total F-K up of the ME and the world
He was the linchpin
non-Patriot act.
nuff said.
Like a frog in a slow boiling pot of water, I’m embarrassed that I didn’t catch on that the Bushie team was a Globalist outfit back in the early to mid-2000s. I was just happy that Algore didn’t win.
Like Jesse Jackson said, “Stay out the Bushes.”
more importantly the dailykos statement shows how our school system has failed.
when someone forces the government to NOT control you that is now called facism. the ghost of Mussolini thanks the fking idiots.
“Oh, bullshit, he also was MIA in the presidential leadership role when he did occupy the highest office in our nation. His faults as a president are legion.”
DailyKos could be describing Biden, and they have no beef with HIS performance.
The Bush family has done more to undermine small-government conservatives than any Democrat organization has.
For the most part, politics draws those who are the least suited for the job.
“The trouble with political jokes is that they keep getting elected. ”
(Henry Cate VII)
Learning that psychopathy/sociopathy is a physical, genetic defect that can’t be addressed by “moral training” explained so much more of this to me. All governments are the result of iterative contests between candidates and bureaucrats, where the winners are strongly biased towards those willing to commit the worst enormities in order to triumph.
(For the curious, I recommend the 1996 single-season TV series “Profit.”)
When lies, deceit, backstabbing and blame shifting are rewarded then those who posses the moral ambiguity and a penchant for slimy tactics prosper and rise. This drives out those who either don’t have those cut throat skill sets or who grow tired of their ethical erosion and the cost to their conscience. This leaves the unethical, predatory nearly psychopath hacks in charge. See the FBI and James Comet as one example.
These are sort of folks who rise to the top in govt service. Lets not minimize this point when the true believing, big govt cheerleaders of more govt power and/or more forever wars show up to pass out the kool aid for their latest sales pitch. Purge the agencies and departments putting offenders in prison after their pensions are revoked/clawed back for unfaithful service ….then maybe after we see how their replacements perform for a decade and whether the agencies/dept lose their way again or not….maybe we can discuss some of the cheerleaders ideas, but not until then.
Say you are voting for Harris without telling us you’re voting for Harris.
What about low-energy Jeb?
He’s still begging people to clap.
I try to wrap my head around the thinking of thes people who think that a Kamala Harris presidency would be preferable to Trump. Are they so blinded by their Globalist ideology that they can’t see that she’s a communist train wreck?
Is it because they are so wealthy that they think the ensuing mayhem won’t affect them?
I just can’t get there. It seems like their brains are wired very differently than normal people. Or they just don’t care. Very frustrating.
I’d really like to see some feedback from you all on this. What thoughts do you have on their mindset?
Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) have drummed it into the nation’s heads that Trump is the Antichrist. If Trump were running against Castro, Mao, or Stalin, they still wouldn’t vote for him.
I’m convinced that they very foolishly believe if Trump loses, they can finally take back their party. It’s as simple as that. They’re too stupid to understand that if Harris wins, there won’t be two-party system of government anymore. There will be 30M+ illegal aliens voting in 2028 and beyond, giving Democrats a permanent governing majority in TX, FL, AZ & GA…and maybe several other states.
They don’t. Are, they will just declare themselves democrats
I think that’s largely correct. The old guard GoP types the ones who look for ‘public private partnership’ or hang on every sentence from Bill Kristol and the rest of the neocon frauds really believe that once Trump exits the political stage there’s gonna be a resurgence of support for the policy perspectives of the editorial pages of the WSJ and Nation Review from the late ’90s or early ’00s.
To be honest, if ¿Qué Mala? wins I rather suspect that elections will no longer by how governments are determined in this country anymore.
Subotai Bahadur
I suspect that the impetus for division/split will only grow if Harris becomes President in ’25. The idea of the ‘Sunbelt Republic’ is interesting; TX, LA, MS, AL and FL is the initial proposal I saw kicked around as a though experiment of an area that could would be viable as an independent Nation. Probably could add OK, AR parts of GA south of Atlanta to Savannah, maybe SC and possibly some areas of TN.
I would really prefer to avoid all that drama and win the damn election. Then repeat it for another decade and half keeping the d/prog out of power while also using the levers of power to aggressively roll back the last 4 decades of Cray Cray and we could all go on with our lives.
Trump dodged a bullet! Having Bush endorse you is almost as bad as Putin endorsing Kamala.
That makes two bullets. Let’s not hope for a hat trick.
The Daily Kos is still around?
Kinda thought he retired in 2007…
Q: You won’t make an endorsement? Why not?
A: No need. Dick Cheney made the endorsement for both of us.
Liz made it for all 3 of them.
Too Chickensheiete to admit his preference so he sits on the fence, I hope he gets a fence post suppository.
It’s his right to do so, although he is still a citizen, whether politicking or no, and in these times no citizen should sit on sideline. Can’t say this a Surprise
You know he wants to follow Dick and Liz’s lead SO BAD …