I guess what I initially found compelling about the "Should Ellen have gone to the game with GW Bush?" imbroglio is Bush does seem likable. If I met him and especially Laura, I think I would find them decent, though I would have to forget who they really are and what they have stood for. My initial take was admittedly selfishly humble: "Hmmm, I have long said I would have loved an evening with Richard Nixon, as I find him endlessly fascinating--even though I still consider Nixon a war criminal. And even though I know Nixon spoke in anti-Semitic terms--though Nixon was very tight with Len Garment, a definitely Jewish guy, and there was nothing anti-Semitic in Nixon's policies as I recall."
I then circled back to Ellen's "status" as a lesbian icon and wondered, what is Ellen doing? If I was gay, I think I would have been immediately upset at Ellen DeGeneres' decision, as she is a very out lesbian. Considering that status, I think she should have more deeply considered the GW Bush administration's (1) choices for federal judges, (2) policies promoting right wing religious schools with public funds--even as those schools push anti-LGBT "doctrines" and support discriminating against the LGBT community, and (3) dog whistles to right wing voters, which were decidedly anti-LGBT. Nixon did not appoint anti-Semitic judges as part of an expressed policy (though Carswell and the other schmuck nominee for the Supreme Court probably didn't like Jews all that much). Nixon is also known for coming to Israel's rescue during the first 24 hours of the Yom Kippur War at a time when the majority of American Jews and Israel were much more aligned than now. Bush may have been pro-Israel, but in this century, being pro-Israel primarily means promoting oppression of Palestinians and having a satellite in the military-industrial complex rather than standing for the "protection of the Jewish people." As I like to say to BDSers, So, you think the Egyptians would have spared the Israeli Jews if Egypt won that 1973 war?
I think GW Bush gets a pass from the cultural elite, of which Ellen is a major member, because Bush is a hail-fellow guy on a personal level, though unlike Nixon, he is dull and banal, and definitely not endlessly fascinating. I find Ellen's defense hollow because, no matter what she says, I doubt she would have gone to the ballgame with Dick Cheney, though Cheney's personal family life made him personally pro-gay--as Cheney continued to cynically push an anti-gay agenda for Cheney's more personal monetary, and primarily imperial and fascistic designs. There is something not so nice about Cheney's personality to say the least (though I'll admit an evening with his writer wife would be fascinating for me).
Overall, I have grown more and more to think of Mark Raffalo's points about Bush, as I recall Bush being a cruel buffoon, including Bush's reaction to Hurricane Katrina (which was a result of Bush-Cheney's cynical destruction of FEMA before Hurricane Katrina), the Bush-Cheney lies regarding the Gulf War II, the torture policies, pushing private prisons and the prison-industrial state, the continued dog whistles promoting racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and policies which strengthened a denial of climate change--all when Bush campaigned in 2000 as the ultimate Republican "moderate."
I also admit to remaining most amazed at the success of the US corporate media's propaganda system that Bush and Cheney were never in danger of impeachment for their negligence in allowing the events of 9/11/2001 to occur. Had this horrific event in US history occurred under a Gore-Lieberman administration, the cry of criminal negligence would have made impeachment inevitable. However, let's note something else here: There would have been no "9/11" because Gore would have listened to Richard Clarke and John O'Neill, and would have hardened airport security, as the Europeans did in the summer of 2001 (Bush-Cheney US Attorney General John Ashcroft wanted this hardening, too, and refused to fly in commercial aircraft starting in June 2001). But, hold on Gore fans. Gore and Lieberman were gung-ho about going after Saddam, and would likely have allowed for the promotion of the imperialist lies about WMDs, and gone merrily on the way to Baghdad. Gore was a neo-con and neo-lib of the first order in his career, before he lost in 2000 what should have been won, grew a beard, and re-read his late, great father's speeches and life career. When we think about the events of 9/11, and recognize Bush's negligent complicity, I wonder if we can really say, Oh yeah, let's go to a ball game with that guy.
So count me more in as asking Ellen why she did what she did, especially given her status as a lesbian icon. I don't see how civility in politics was improved by her non-brave move of going to a ballgame with a former president who is personally irrelevant in current American politics. Instead, the whole thing does look like George Carlin's insight, "It's a big club--and you ain't in it."
