Four years after he left office, the history of George W.
Bush's presidency is being rewritten - ever-so-slowly, and not yet in ways that
fundamentally challenge popular understandings of the man and his tenure. ...
[1] Cheney was estranged from Bush: ... Bush has disclosed that he considered
dropping Cheney as his running mate for several weeks in mid-2003. 'He was seen
as dark and heartless, the Darth Vader of the administration,' he wrote in
2010. 'Dick's offer would be one way to demonstrate that I was in charge.'
Cheney chastised Bush for repeatedly refusing to pardon Scooter Libby, an aide
who got caught up in the Valerie Plame affair. ... 'You are leaving a good man
wounded on the field of battle,' he told Bush. ... [2] The administration was a
snake pit: ... Cheney laced into Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in his
memoir ... Rice called Cheney's book 'utterly misleading' ...
[3] Bush and Obama are going down, or up , in history
together: ... It is already clear that the continuities from Bush to Obama
matter as much as the reversals, especially on national security. Obama applied
the Bush surge strategy from Iraq to Afghanistan. Both men said they wanted to
close the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay but proved unable to do
so. More broadly, both men are governing in a post-9/11 environment, in
chronically sluggish economies, amassing large budget deficits. Both came to
the presidency promising to be unifiers and each won reelection with narrow
majorities cobbled together from deliberately polarizing campaigns. ... [New
York Times reporter Peter Baker, author of 'Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in
the White House,' out in Oct., said:] 'Obama has kept a lot of what Bush left
him ... and that is helpful to Bush [in arguing] that his policies were not an
aberration' ...
[4] Bush is a personally decent fellow ... avoided taking
pot shots at his successor. ... [5] The 2003 Iraq invasion looks no better in
retrospect ... [6] Other mysteries remain: Bush kept a diary as president. He
told Bob Woodward, who quoted from some of it in 'Bush at War.' Woodward could
not get a definitive answer for his three subsequent books about whether Bush
continued to keep the diary through his presidency, as Ronald Reagan had."
THE
ARCHITECTURE : The George W. Bush Presidential Center is
located on 23 acres at the entrance of the Southern Methodist University (SMU)
campus five miles north of downtown Dallas. ... The 226,000-square-foot
facility houses two entities: the George W. Bush Presidential Library and
Museum and the George W. Bush Institute. It also includes a museum store and
Café 43, catering to museum visitors and the local community. The Bush Center
is enveloped within a 15-acre urban park recreating the historic native prairie
landscape of the past. ... The Bush Library and Museum holds more than 70
million pages of paper records, 43,000 artifacts, 200 million emails and 4
million digital photographs. It is the largest holding of digital records of
any presidential library.
The architectural signature of the Bush Presidential Library
and Museum is Freedom Hall, a 67-foot-high, 50-by-50 foot 'lantern' made of
Texas Cordova Cream limestone ... Freedom Hall encases a one-of-a-kind
20-foot-tall, 360-degree, high-definition video wall that orients visitors to
the museum's permanent and temporary exhibits. The 14,000-square-foot permanent
exhibit of the museum highlights principles that guided President and Mrs. Bush
in public life. The museum features exhibits on education reform, the global
war on terror, and the spread of human freedom, as well as the financial
crisis, efforts to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS and other moments of the
presidency. There is a full-scale replica of the Oval Office and a piece of
steel from the World Trade Center in the museum." www.bushcenter.org/newsroom/fact-sheet
TRUMAN
- In
his biography of Harry Truman, David McCullough wrote that CBS newscaster Eric
Sevareid 'would say nearly forty years later of Truman, "I am not sure he
was right about the atomic bomb, or even Korea. But remembering him reminds
people what a man in that office ought to be like."
COMMENCEMENT
2013 – The 2013 college and university commencement season is now
beginning, here are this weeks’ notable speakers – May 4; University of
Michigan – Richard Costello, CEO Twitter: University of the Pacific – Walter Robb,
CEO Whole Foods Market: May 5; THE Ohio State University – President
Obama: New England Institute of Technology – Terry Bradshaw, Pro Football Hall
of Famer.
JERRY
BROWN, TERMINATOR - "The Real Terminator." The piece
"examines how [Brown] has managed to rein in spending, raise taxes on the
wealthy, and plug California's $27 billion deficit by making so many cuts that
he 'scared the crap out of people.'" Brown "acknowledges that
reviving California's economy has required him to embrace big business. 'People
who do things tend to have a lot of money at the end of the day. It's not the
granola crowd who are going to move mountains.' ...
"Brown's bachelor life included relationships with
Linda Rondstadt, Barbra Streisand, Natalie Wood, Stevie Nicks, Liv Ulman and
Arianna Huffington. He may not have the chummy charisma of a politician, but he
may have something better: Mystery. Yes, he's an egghead, but he's one of the
rare eggheads who could lead a cult. He's intimidating and unwilling to suffer anyone
who isn't into suffering, but he's also excited to engage: He is not a man who
is going to stop a good conversation because of his schedule."
MARKET
WEEK
– Wall Street's major averages are on track to chalk up another positive month,
with two trading sessions left in April. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq
Composite haven't had a losing month since October, the Dow since November, and
the Dow has yet to have a losing streak in 2013 longer than two days.
BIRTHDAYS
THIS WEEK – Birthday wishes and thoughts this week to: Adele
(25), Chris Krich …famous football coach and leader, Willie Nelson (80),
Michael Palin (70), Michelle Pfeiffer (55), Jerry Seinfeld (59). Also Rink Rats
is celebrating the birthday week of Mr. Joe Zanetta, 60 years young, and still
the best practice golf swing in the game.
WHY
PEOPLE WORRY: WEAK GDP GROWTH - "Real GDP rose at a 2.5
percent annual rate in Q1, up from 0.4 percent in Q4 but weaker than the 3.0
percent consensus. We forecast 3.3 percent. ... The weaker-than-expected rise
was despite a 1.0 contribution from inventories. Real final sales rose at a 1.5
percent pace, with real domestic final sales up at a 1.9 percent pace. The main
surprise, for us at least, was another sizable drop in government spending:
-4.1 percent at an annual rate following -7.0 percent.
"In other details, real residential investment rose at
a strong 12.6 percent pace, although that was also a bit less than expected.
Real consumption was up at a solid 3.2 percent rate - despite the payroll tax
hike. ... In short, a somewhat disappointing report after the 0.4 percent in
Q4, although that followed 3.1 percent in Q3. ... We still forecast a 2 percent
pace for real GDP in Q2 followed by some acceleration 3.0 percent in Q3 and Q4.
By then, fiscal drag should be fading."
APPLE
ANGERS INVESTORS - Apple Inc. reported its first profit drop in
10 years last week. But that's not what has some investors steamed. The company
is still massively profitable. Instead, it's the manner in which CEO Tim Cook
has communicated with Wall Street and managed expectations. Apple shares are 40
percent off their peak partly on fears yesterday's numbers would be worse.
Here is North Shore Asset Management's Michael Obuchowski,
who owns Apple shares himself and manages them for clients, in an email to
M.M.: "I don't remember ever being that cranky after a quarterly call from
an awesome, incredibly profitable company. I think Tim Cook is a great
operations guy and he fully deserves to be the COO. Can we please have somebody
with [guts] to become the CEO so Tim Cook can apologize to him or her in
private and the real CEO can tell the investors how awesome the company is and
manipulate sell side analysts' expectations as one should? Yes, I did just say
that. It was hardly an embarrassing quarter for Apple.
"What made the results embarrassing was the executives'
apologetic attitude and complete failure to communicate with the analysts.
Somebody please call Greg Maffei for help? His Microsoft quarterly calls should
be studied by all public companies. I am sure that he has a big enough ego to
run Apple. It seems that it should be a prerequisite in Apple CEO interviews.
... What happened to the amazing culture that Steve created? Was it really all
Steve Jobs?"
"Apple said it plans to return more than twice as much
cash to investors than previously planned. The moves, designed to return $100
billion in cash by the end of 2015, include stock buybacks and increasing
quarterly dividends. ... A less-positive undercurrent in Apple's results is a
squeeze on gross profit margins, an important measure in the efficiency of the
company's operations. The figures came in slightly lower than analysts expected,
as the company's product mix shifted to cheaper devices like the iPad
Mini."
DRIVING
THE WEEK – Massive week ahead
for economic data highlighted by the April jobs report on Friday. Expectations
are for a jump from 88,000 jobs in March to around 150,000 last month with no
change to the 7.6 percent jobless rate. Another big miss on jobs would make the
spring swoon fears even more intense. A bump back to trend-line growth would be
a big relief ... Personal income and spending today at 8:30 a.m. EDT expected
to show gain of 0.4 percent and 0.0 percent respectively ... Pending home sales
today at 8:30 expected to grow 0.9 percent ... S&P/Case-Shiller home price
index Tuesday at 9 a.m. EDT expected to rise 0.8 percent ...
"Consumer confidence at 10 a.m. on Tuesday expected to
rise to 63 from 59.7 ... ADP private employment report at 8:15 a.m. on
Wednesday expected to show a 155,000 gain ... ISM manufacturing at 10 a.m. on
Wednesday expected to dip to 51.0 from 51.4 ... FOMC announcement on Wednesday
at 2 p.m. expected to include no policy change but more dour language on the
economy ... Initial jobless claims at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday expected to rise to
346,000 from 339,000 ... ISM nonmanufacturing at 10 a.m. on Friday expected to
slip to 54.0 from 54.5.”
Next week: Jack Ass of the Month and my double life.
Until Next Monday, Adios!
April 29, 2013
#IV-2, 159
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