Whither Dubya?

I kind of feel sorry for President George W. Bush.

Earlier tonight, the Republican National Convention featured a loving short video highlighting President Reagan's greatest hits and soundbites, followed by a speech by Newt Gingrich and Mrs. Gingrich III about how awesome Reagan was. I get that the RNC is trying to draw a not-so-subtle parallel between President Carter and President Obama, making Mitt Romney the Reagan in this equation. Conventions are a lot like pep rallies, so there's always a fair amount of "remember how great it was when WE ran things" at all of them. For instance, if there's not at least one reference to a Kennedy at the Democratic convention next week, I'll eat my hat.

But just when I was thinking that it doesn't say very positive things about the Republican Party that the apex of their influence was a man who left office when I was in the second grade, because they've had two presidents from their party since then and it would be weird not to acknowledge that, here comes..........Jeb Bush.

And this doesn't NOT make sense, because Jeb was the governor of Florida, after all, and we're in Tampa. And it's not like President George Bush is going to come speak at the RNC because he's in his 80s, and even for a superhero that's getting up there. The RNC needed a representative of the Bush family, and they went with Jeb.

But it kind of sucks that there's exactly no place for President George W. Bush at this convention. Because he didn't even get to appear in person at the 2008 convention, and this was a man who, whether you voted for him or not (and I didn't), did serve this country as president for eight years. He did it with the whole-hearted support of the GOP, including current VP nominee Rep. Paul Ryan, who voted for all of the Bush Administration priorities that are killing our budget today.

President Bush did, and tried to do, good things while he was in office. He's the last Republican in recent memory to tackle immigration reform in a realistic way, for instance. It's stunning to see people like Ryan flip-flop from full-throated support of everything Bush sent to Congress to pretending that his presidency didn't exist. And, if you ask me, pretty weasely. It says far more about the Paul Ryans of the world than it does about George W. Bush.