Bush: Kanye West Katrina Remarks Were Lowest Moment of Presidency

Well, yeah. I see that many people just disagree with him and believe his lowest point should be something else, and that's fine. But I also feel like people are criticizing him for considering the Kanye incident to be so bothersome, which I disagree with.

"How can he still be so out of touch as to think that he did the right thing most of the time?" is really just "I disagree with him politically." It's a valid point, and one that I agree with. But that's different than criticizing his choice for lowest moment. Of course he's not going to pick one of the other political things, he disagrees with you that they were that bad.

As I said, it's not just Kanye. If everybody had condemned his remarks then it wouldn't be so bad, but enough people said (and still say) that West was right that it made the comment more substantial.

It seemed to me that there was a bigger backlash against what West did to Taylor Swift than there was against what he said about Bush. If it was an isolated "jackass" saying something stupid I doubt it would have bothered Bush so much, but people agree with what he said.

All those other things you mentioned were political. What West said was personal. Can you see how that difference would have a substantial effect on how strongly each thing affected him?

 

I disagree with you on this point.

I disagree with Bush politically, but that's not why I said what I did. The bottom line is that life in America became worse for most people under his watch. Whether or not I agree with him politically, I would think that fact should make him reconsider a lot of the actions he took and realize that many of them turned out badly, even if he thought he was doing the right thing at the time.

 

But I believe he has looked at the decisions he made, and while I'm sure he doesn't believe they were all perfect, I do believe he thinks he made the best decisions he could at the time. He doesn't blame himself for the things you blame him for, and to me that's just a political or ideological disagreement.

(And of course, we should remember he is talking about the low point of his presidency. Any reflection on the consequences of his actions after the fact isn't really relevant.)

 

Kanye apologizes and GW Bush accepts.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/40108402/ns/today-today_people/?Gt1=43001

Bush reacts to apology from Kanye West
Former president says he ‘appreciates’ rapper’s saying ‘I didn’t have grounds’

Hip-hop artist Kanye West now says he regrets his 2005 comment that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” — a remark that the nation’s 43rd president identifies in his new memoir as one of the lowest points of his eight years in office.

In an exclusive interview taped Tuesday, West told TODAY co-anchor Matt Lauer that he made the comment during a 2005 benefit concert out of “frustration” over the deaths and suffering of victims of Hurricane Katrina, which had devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast that summer. The Bush administration was widely criticized for its handling of the disaster, which took nearly 2,000 lives during the hurricane and its aftermath.
“I would tell George Bush, in my moment of frustration, I didn’t have the grounds to call him a racist,” West told Lauer. “But I believe that in a situation of high emotion like that, we as human beings don’t always choose the right words.”

West’s interview with Lauer aired Thursday on TODAY. After its taping Tuesday, the hip-hop artist made a number of remarks critical of the interview via his Twitter feed, alleging that he had been put in an uncomfortable position.

Referring to tape of his MTV VMA appearance rolling in the background as the interview took place, West asked Lauer Tuesday, "How am I supposed to talk if you're going to run this thing in the middle of my talking?" On Thursday, Lauer explained that running tape like that is standard procedure while interviewing guests, and said “We stand by what happened” during the interview.
Shown the clip of West’s apology during a live interview about his book on Wednesday, Bush said he was glad to hear that West had had a change of heart. Although Bush specified the rapper by name in his new memoir, “Decision Points,” he said that it was the fact that many Americans perceived him as uncaring and apparently detached from the disaster that hurt him deeply.
“I appreciate that,” Bush told Lauer after viewing the clip. “It wasn’t just Kanye West who was talking like that during Katrina; I cite him as an example.
“I am not a hater,” he added. “I don’t hate Kanye West. I was talking about an environment in which people were willing to say things that hurt. Nobody wants to be called a racist, if in your heart you believe in equality of race.”
In an interview with Oprah Winfrey that aired Tuesday, Bush said, “I can see how the perception would be, ‘Maybe Bush didn’t care.’ But to accuse me of being a racist is disgusting.”

Related: Bush on mortgage crisis: ‘My conscience is clear’

In “Decision Points,” Bush wrote that the knowledge that people believed he was racist and didn’t care about minorities left homeless, sick or dead in the wake of Hurricane Katrina hurt him more than criticism over the invasion of Iraq in 2003:

“I faced a lot of criticism as president. I didn’t like hearing people claim that I lied about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction or cut taxes to benefit the rich,” he wrote. “But the suggestion that I was racist because of the response to Katrina represented an all-time low.”

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