I want to talk about the controversy that's exploded over Ellen de generous being friends
with George W. Bush and defending her friendship with them. And I actually knew about this
friendship for a while, uh,
between what seems in some way sort of like an unlikely pair of people who would be friends
with a leftist lesbian talk show host and a neo-con Republican former president. And
you know, I mean, I think it's fine, but part of Ellen's commentary on this hasn't been
good. And I want to talk through it with you because as I've said before, it's really profitable
to have a take on this that is either 100% on one side or 100% on the other. And the
truth is that there actually is some nuance here that I think is relevant to discuss.
And I've been very careful over the last two and a half years of the Trump presidency,
not to inadvertently rehabilitate George W. Bush, his image. So when I say Trump is much
worse than even George W. Bush on this or on that, I want to couch it and make it clear
that I am not looking back at the George W. Bush presidency through Rose colored glasses,
or in any way minimizing the horrors of the war, criminality and all of the stuff that
George W. Bush did.
And the reason that I think this is important is that with time it's easy to forget how
disgustingly terrible George w Bush's presidency was. And many of my viewers were really young.
Uh, during that presidency and may not even really remember it. So they're getting a lot
of their understanding of that presidency from what I happened to offhandedly say. That's
why I take it really seriously not to in any way rehabilitate George W. Bush, his image
when I compare him to Donald Trump or to anything else. So the other day, George W. Bush and
Alan degenerates are spotted together at a football game in Texas having a grand old
time and some people started to be mad about it. How dare Ellen be friends with someone
as horrible as George W. Bush. And the controversy got big enough that Ellen responded to it
on her show. She did a several minute segment on her show. Now the right thing to do, this
segment correctly would be to play the video for you now, and I planned to do it, but yesterday
a bunch of people got copyright strikes and their YouTube accounts got completely destroyed
by Ellen's production company for using a clip of the show.
And I don't want to do that. I think that'll be counterproductive to the segment. So find
the video online of her response. It's very easy. She essentially said, listen, I'm friends
with lots of people I don't agree with on politics. We should be kind to everyone. When
I say be kind to everyone, I mean everyone, not just people. We agree politically. I'm
friends with people who wear fur and I don't wear fur and I'm still friends with them.
But when we say be kind to everyone, I mean be kind to everyone. This is a paraphrasing
of her response, but you can pause this video if you're watching on YouTube, find that video
and then come back. I just want to avoid the problem of a, of the wrath of Ellen's production
company. If I play the video now, she almost has it right in a sense, but she goes too
far.
So if you want me to sit here and say, there's nothing wrong with what Ellen said, this is
great bipartisan friendships. I'm not going to say that. Do you want me to condemn Ellen
as a terrible person for what she said and saying it's completely wrong. I'm also not
going to do that. There is a good message in there. Okay. If people were able to get
along in general, better across party lines, across religious lines, cultural, whatever,
society would be much better off. And Ellen is right. I mean we all have families and
friends and colleagues and you can't at every opportunity that you meet someone with a different
opinion, uh, even an opinion, you find disgusting. Start attacking and yelling even during a
football game and say, I will not be around this person. You are not going to be invited
anywhere. It's not a pragmatic way to carry about your life.
That part of the message Ellen is 110% spot on about, but this is a former president.
Okay. So for Ellen to simply say, we have disagreements, just like I know people who
were for an I don't, but we're still friends, it suggests a sort of political amnesia about
the fact that George W. Bush is not just your uncle who is against abortion. Right. And
I think that that's the problem I had with Elon's response. George W. Bush is a war criminal
with blood on his hands, whose decisions as president led to the deaths of thousands of
American soldiers, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians. She's going
in the direction of almost suggesting that these are differences like tastes in food
or wine. Uh, but what we're talking about is one of the biggest foreign policy blunders
in modern American history that led to endless death sanctioning totally un-American, torture
by the U S government campaigning against LGBT rights.
By the way, Ellen, of course being a lesbian herself, um, scaling up the war on drugs really,
really bad. And then the, a lot of hangers on pop up and then they play the role of the
enlightened centrist. And this is just so stupid with really bad takes. Here's one example.
There's a Hawaii Congresswoman named Tulsi Gabbert who is running for president actually
who tweeted quote Ellen's message of being kind to all is so needed right now. Enough
with the divisiveness. We can't let politics terrorists apart. There are things we will
disagree on strongly and things we agree on. Let's treat each other each other with respect,
Aloha and work together for the people. So listen, this is a fine message in general,
but that doesn't mean you have to apply it to the few people on the planet who are actual
war criminals and whose decisions have actually led to the deaths of tens of thousands or
hundreds of thousands.
Now, there will be people who say, but David, you know, the truth is every president is
responsible for deaths through foreign policy. Right? That so does this mean you can't ever
be friends with any president? No, I'm not even saying I have a problem with Ellen's
friendship with George W. Bush. But the sort of flippant and glib, glib nature of not saying
it's not just disagreements, it's his completely boneheaded decisions. We're not only discriminatory
against an entire class of people, which I am a member of, and led to the deaths of hundreds
of thousands. You know, it's just, listen, some people were for an I don't, and it's
just, you know, we're, we're friends or whatever. So I want to be really clear. This is not
about cancel Ellen. I tweeted about this a couple of days ago and people started writing
back, wow, David, your cancel culture. Now you're trying to get Ellen canceled because
she's not being partisan.
You're part of the problem. No, I like Ellen. She can be friends with George W. Bush. I
don't have a problem with a friendship per se. Even I'm sure on a personal level, he's
a nice guy. He'll tell you about his paintings that he does and whatever, but the reason
that I'm okay with the friendship is that ideally with friendships like these, we would
be preventing people like George W. Bush from doing the horrible things that he did when
he got into power in the first place. In other words, we can't diminish the sick nature of
what he did to equating it to choices about food, wine, or wearing fur or not, and that's
where Ellen loses me. This is a war criminal with the blood of hundreds of thousands of
people on his hands who were optional casualties of his administration. There can be a limit
to unconditional kindness that doesn't make us terrible people would we apply the same
thing too?
I mean, I'm thinking out loud. I don't know the answer. What did we say? Listen, Osama
bin Laden did terrible, terrible things, but I'm about being kind to everybody and we're
going to go hang out and watch soccer in Pakistan or wherever else. I don't know. Maybe you
do, maybe you don't. What about a mass murderer? Uh, treating someone with respect versus describing
things as mere choice, disagreements is a problem. So in the big picture, more discussion,
more friendship, socializing between people with political differences is good, but saying
that she and Bush merely have differences of opinion is political amnesia or it's indifference
of the worst kind. That's the problem I have with it.