UNIVERSITY PARK, Tex. -- President Obama joined all of his living predecessors on Thursday to pay tribute to George W. Bush as the arguments of the past decade gave way, at least for a day, to a more generous appraisal of a leader who responded to great challenges with determination and grit.

That's not how I would have summed it up. Lying to the American people, killing about 150,000 innocent Iraqi civilians and God knows how many innocent Afghanis. Being responsible for the shredding of the Constitution, torturing suspects and lying about it to the American people, gutting our civil liberties and rights to privacy. And then there are all those American soldiers who were killed, committed suicide or have returned maimed to totally inadequate care.

The Times calls that "determination and grit".
That's the personage those assembled Presidents, who we elected, were paying tribute to.

"We know President Bush the man," Mr. Obama told the crowd in front of the brick-and-limestone center on a bright, sunny Texas day. "To know the man is to like the man. Because he's comfortable in his own skin. He knows who he is. He doesn't put on any pretenses. He takes his job seriously but he doesn't take himself too seriously. He is a good man."

Mr. Obama can like whomever he chooses, obviously.
Personally, I find the object of his affection to be a festering cancer.

The killing hundreds of thousands and the betrayal of the principles of the nation you were elected to serve - that does not fit my description of a "good man".

To rich people, 15 grand amounts to tip money so they cannot see why average Americans shouldn't be willing to give up such a paltry sum especially if it will "save" Social Security for their grandchildren.

Funny thing about that --- it won't. Save Social Security, that is. The green line is the present course of the trust fund. The dotted blue line is with the Chained-CPI:(chart in post)
...
As you can see, it adds about two years to the trust fund. If this so-called "shortfall" is the problem they seek to solve by switching to the Chained-CPI, I think we can agree that it's a pretty pathetic solution. link

To use weapons of mass destruction on civilian populations crosses another line in terms of international norms and laws.. That's going to be a game changer," he said.

-President Obama speaking today about Syria using chemical weapons.

While I agree that the president has to back up his tough talk I wish the president hadn't talked tough in the first place.

I'd actually forgive a little backtracking on his part.  

The monks of St. Joseph Abbey in St Benedict, Louisiana make two types of caskets and beat Louisiana state regulators in the U.S. Court of Appeals when the State tried to keep the monks from selling them.

The basic for $1500

The traditional for $2000

NYTimes Report on Abuse

This is what happens when government grows too large.   We can pass out a billion bucks and no one even bats an eye.

After some pretty embarrassing revelations about his personal life probably made a few general managers wince when considering his services, Heisman Trophy runner-up Mantei Te'o of Notre Dame (and Punahou School) was finally selected by the San Diego Chargers in the second round of the 2013 NFL draft to anchor their secondary.

Without a doubt, Jones was a consummate musical artist whose own tumultuous personal life sometimes appeared to mimic his country-western ballads to the point of caricature, especially during the 1970s and '80s. His rocky third marriage to Tammy Wynette is the stuff of show business legend, and there were clearly more than a few scary times when his alcoholism and drug abuse were so self-destructive and out of control that he seemed to be the proverbial train wreck waiting to happen.

Then, amazingly, Jones pulled out of his nose dive, turned it around and sobered up. He spent his later years continuing to perform, and to his eternal credit, he never once ducked his past whenever the inevitable questions arose.