W on Facebook: Leadership, China and Wikileaks

For anyone who missed the Facebook live interview with George W. Bush, here is the video. Bush was in rare form in the interview and shared a few of his thoughts with Facebook creator and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Bush made frequent jokes about being there to sell his book,  reminding Zuckerberg and another questioner to get back to selling the book. At one point when discussing Condi Rice Bush quips, "If you're listening Condi, why aren't you in the audience? Have you bought the book?"

 Bush referred to Facebook's success throughout. At one point he compliments Zuckerberg for giving back to the country through his education initiatives. He often drew comparisons between he and Zuckerberg when discussing criticism and leadership. At one point Bush is asked how do you stay the course, he responds, "By not whining. By setting an example..." He then goes into a rather long and interesting discussion on managing and leadership. If you can't watch the whole interview the 10 minutes after the 20 minute mark are interesting.

Bush shares his thoughts on working with Bono and relates a story of Jacques Chiraq lecturing Bush on unilateralism. Bush let Chiraq have it which evidently impressed Bono. From there the discussion moves to China. Bush relates an anecdote where he asks Hu Jintau what keeps him up at night, Jintau answers "creating 25 million new jobs a year. Bush thought this was very reflective of China and the Chinese people. Again this is a really interesting segment that comes after the 40 minute mark.

Lastly Bush discusses Wikileaks, quite reluctantly. He was very emphatic when he ultimately declares these leaks dangerous and says that the leakers must be prosecuted. He related this to a similar episode he shares in the book. He goes on to say that there may be difficulty establishing trust when working with foreign leaders as a result of the leaks. The balance of the interview is fairly light hearted but in my estimation this was Bush at his absolute best. This is worth a watch if you have the time:

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"It was one of the most irresponsible acts I witnessed in my eight years in Washington"

George W. Bush, in his new book Decision Points,weighs in on Harry Reid's declaration, "this war is lost:"

He was right.  Less than one week after General Petraeus arrived in Iraq, the new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives had passed a nonbinding resolution that declared, "Congress disapproves of the decision of President George W. Bush announced on January 10, 2007, to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq."

After a day of heavy violence in April, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada declared, "This war is lost, the surge is not accomplishing anything."  The majority leader of the U.S. Senate had just used his platform to tell 145,000 American troops and their families that they were fighting for a lost cause.  He had written off the surge as a failure before all of the additional troops had even arrived.  It was one of the most irresponsible acts I witnessed in my eight years in Washington.

Good thing Nevada re-elected Harry Reid and saved the country from that Sharron Angle brand of crazy.

Interestingly enough, some on the left have been whining  (more than usual), Bush's book might have saved them some extra sessions of grief counseling had it been released prior to the election.  Poor Obama was unfairly blamed by the Tea Party crowd for the decision to rescue Wall Street with TARP.  It's so ... so ..UNFAIR.

As usual, there are a couple of problems with the lefty logic at work here.  First, Barack Obama, a junior US Senator at the time,  voted for TARP breaking from a long-standing tradition of voting present.

Second, Bush admits TARP was unpopular but he also said he believed it saved the economy.  Oh snap, I thought Obama saved the economy.  Of course Obama could try to convince the public that it was really the stimulus that saved the economy.  GOOD LUCK WITH THAT.

Third, the Tea Party was very well aware of Bush's role in TARP so please leave the Tea Party out of this.

Finally, who really needs Bush's book when the Dems have the mysterious Gore curse working against Republicans in really close elections:

For GOPs, Close = Lose? Am I crazy to think that close elections—the ones that are separated by a mere hundreds of votes, that go into overtime and threatened recounts well past Election Eve—almost always are won by the Democrat these days?

Now, would that be "Harry Reid crazy," "Sharron Angle crazy," or a whole new brand of crazy altogether?
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