Tina Brown: Bush Library To Be "Halloween Shop Of Horrors," Presidency "A Chapter Of Hideous Accidents"

The Daily Beast founder and editor-in-chief Tina Brown appeared on "The Rachel Maddow Show" (guest-hosted by Alison Stewart, wife of executive producer Bill Wolff) Tuesday night. Brown's segment was focused on the 62 days remaining in the Bush presidency, and she did not mince words in dissecting the lame duck.

"One of the things that I'm told at the moment is that Bush is entirely focused right now on his legacy, on his library," she said. "That's all he really wants to talk about is his library. Because he's trying to build a legacy. But quite honestly, one can only think that that library is a Halloween House of Horrors. From the Guantanamo room to the Abu Ghraib room to the Hurricane Katrina room, this is going to be a very interesting library when it is built."

Brown also said that Bush's presidency has had "so many disasters" that, unlike previous lame duck Presidents, he is not "looking back in a mellow fashion on his Presidency, or even feeling that he has busy things to do so much as a President who is kind of punch-drunk with a series of debacles which even he — in his great denial and refusal to accept his own failures — has to accept at this point has been a chapter of hideous accidents, if you want to be charitable about it."

Watch:

Before Tina went up to 30 Rock, she celebrated the launch of The Daily Beast at New York's Pop Burger (she ducked out at 8:41 PM, says the New York Observer's John Koblin). Read his party report here.

Comments

[eugenegerard]

There were no accidents. This was a planned presidency. Dismantle the Constitution. Dismantle the government. Make your oil and military industrial complex buddies rich. Drain the middle class of their bank accounts so they could be herded easier. Oh yeah, drain the Treasury. Almost forgot that one.

[suleimom]

Don't forget the destruction of education to insure a future with an ignorant voter base.

[eugenegerard]

Very good. I agree.

[MizLiz]

I hope nobody contributes to the damn thing. Serve him right.

[Badfickle]

George Bush makes Jimmy Carter look like George Washington.

[eugenegerard]

Jimmy had to pay the bill for Viet Nam. When Nixen took office we had 10,000 dead GIs. When he left we had 58,000 dead GIs and 2million dead Viet Namese. Jimmy's economy was the bill for war.
The same is going to happen to the next 2 or 3 presidents unless they are magicians.

War is a really bad way to bolster an economy. Pure waste'pillaging and death.

[dare i hope]

This reminds me of how I was never convinced that Bush Sr. was very bright. His debate with Dukakis where, out of nowhere, he started spouting a memorized sound-bite about the thousand(?) points of light clinched this perception of him for me.

Then came along Jr. and it was quickly apparent that relative to the son the dad was Einstein, Newton, and Galileo rolled into one.

That being said, the country elected W twice (or very nearly elected him twice) and now we get to pay the price of _our_ collectively soft brains.

[EricHayes]

Must've been Big Barb's genes that mucked W up.

Here's a scary thought: Imagine 43 and McCain in a dogfight. Who'd hit the ground (or the side of a mountain) first?

[iPolitics]

Legacy? Worst.President.Ever.