Peggy Noonan Cleverly Notes That Bush Is Not Obama, And Obama Is Not Bush

It is Friday, praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, so this soul-sucking week of Republicans pretending George Dubya Bush was awesome is almost over. The Dubya Liberry is now open for business, after a mostly awkward ceremony where Jimmy Carter explained all the awesome things Bush did after Jimmy asked him to , and Bill Clinton made some funnies about Bush's new hobby of painting himself in the nude -- which we guess is a better hobby than bombing shit and tanking the economy, but only slightly because "Bush" plus "nude" plus have you seen those paintings? Ewwww.

However, as the week is not quite over just yet, Madame Peggy Noonan would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that she does not like President Obama. Why is this week different from all other weeks, you may ask? Well, it's not because Obama made her stay in a crappy hotel room . No, this week, it is because Obama is not like Bush, who was the greatest president ever, besides Reagan, obviously, whose rotted corpse will one day rise again and then Peggy will get to make silly words come out of his mouth once more, and then they will bareback a unicorn together and ... oh, well, let's leave Peggy's private fevered fantasies alone for now, and turn our attention instead to the ones she spewed onto the pages of the Wall Street Journal :

Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 because he was not George W. Bush. In fact, he was elected because he was the farthest thing possible from Mr. Bush.

Only Peggy could say that Obama is not Bush like it's a bad thing, while the rest of the free-thinking world thought that was, like, a good thing. You know, because of how freakin' terrible Bush was at being president (and also at eating pretzels). Which Republicans mostly agreed with by the time Bush left office, and also for many years afterward, which is why they all disavowed him, claimed he was never really one of them anyway, and pretended he'd never even been president and all that horrible stuff that happened under his watch actually happened during some vague period of time for which Clinton or Obama were responsible, but not Bush, no sir, because Bush who?

This week something changed. George W. Bush is back, for the unveiling of his presidential library. His numbers are dramatically up. You know why? Because he's the farthest thing from Barack Obama.

Obama fatigue has opened the way to Bush affection.

Well, erm, uh, no. The rehabilitation of Bush's reputation actually started after the 2012 election, when Mitt Romney sucked so hard that Republicans started to remember Bush fondly , and Jonah Goldberg even said he owed Bush an apology for not fully appreciating him because that's how hard Romney sucked. But whatevs -- Romney, Obama, same dif, we guess? Maybe Peggy's just confused and experiencing some dementia because she is 150 years old? That might explain her version of Ode to George Bush, which apparently every Republican in 'Merica was required to write this week, although none did so more disgustingly than Dana Perino , who took her assignment very seriously indeed. Here is Peggy's more restrained version of Why I Heart George Dubya:

In all his recent interviews Mr. Bush has been modest, humorous, proud but unassuming, and essentially philosophical: History will decide. No finger-pointing or scoring points. If he feels rancor or resentment he didn't show it. He didn't attempt to manipulate. His sheer normality seemed like a relief, an echo of an older age.

And all this felt like an antidote to Obama—to the imperious I, to the inability to execute, to the endless interviews and the imperturbable drone, to the sense that he is trying to teach us, like an Ivy League instructor taken aback by the backwardness of his students. And there's the unconscious superiority. One thing Mr. Bush didn't think he was was superior. He thought he was luckily born, quick but not deep, and he famously trusted his gut but also his heart. He always seemed moved and grateful to be in the White House. Someone who met with Mr. Obama during his first year in office, an old hand who'd worked with many presidents, came away worried and confounded. Mr. Obama, he said, was the only one who didn't seem awed by his surroundings, or by the presidency itself.

Mr. Bush could be prickly and irritable and near the end showed arrogance, but he wasn't vain or conceited, and he still isn't.

Of course Peggy can't even say nice things about Bush without also saying mean things about Obama, which, we admit, may have been part of the assignment, in which case Perino gets an "F" because she only talked about how dreamy Bush is, but on the other hand, Perino is on the teevee every week talking about how Obama sucks so maybe she can save her grade with all that extra credit.

Anyway, Peggy is very happy -- or at least as happy as her presumably botoxed face will allow her to be -- that the press was nice about Bush at his liberry-opening ceremony:

Coverage of the opening of his presidential library Thursday was wall to wall on cable, and a feeling of affection for him was encouraged, or at least enabled, by the Washington press corps, which doesn't much like Mr. Obama because he's not all that likable, and remembers Mr. Bush with a kind of reluctant fondness because he was.

This is a strange thing for a Republican to say because we are quite sure we've been told repeatedly that the lamestream media is in the tank for Obama and that is why journamalists are always covering up the truth about his birth certificate and BENGHAZIIIII!!!!! because they love him so much, but now Peggy tells us they don't love him so much, at least not like how they love Dubya, even though they are the evil librul media? Crap, we are confused again or maybe Peggy's dementia is contagious.

Anyhoo, that's pretty much the gist of her whole column -- Bush is not Obama, and Obama is not Bush -- but that doesn't prevent her from droning on for another 500,000 words, explaining that everyone who attended this event is older than they used to be when they weren't as old as they are now, and also just repeating herself in case we missed her point the first dozen times she made it:

But to the point. Mr. Obama was elected because he wasn't Bush.

Yes, she did already say that, and no, it's still not much of a point, but by the end of her column, Peggy has a different point:

Back to the point. What was nice was that all of them—the Bush family, the Carters and Clintons—seemed like the old days. "The way we were." They were full of endurance, stamina, effort. Also flaws, frailty, mess. But they weren't . . . creepy.

We guess this is Peggy's passive aggressive way of suggesting that President Obama is creepy, although we are fairly certain he does not send nude self-portraits to his sister, so Peggy obviously has a different definition of creepy than we do. (And again, ew. Seriously, ew.)

Peggy finally concludes this derptastic tirade with some wishful thinking that is so pathetic, we almost feel sorry for her, except that she is awful, so instead we will just point and laugh:

Anyway, onward to Obama fatigue, and the Democratic Party wrestling with what comes next. It's not only the Republicans in a deep pit.

Actually, Democrats don't have to do much wrestling, because they have a long list of awesome potential candidates for the next presidential election, while Republicans have ... uh ... um ... Yeah. Exactly. Sorry, Peggy, but you're in that pit all by yourselves after all. Now eat your Jello and go take a nap.

[ Wall Street Journal ]