Republicans suddenly remember Dubya fondly because Romney was THAT bad

Remember this guy? All of a sudden, Republicans do. Congratulations, Mitt Romney. You suck so much, you've managed to make your own party remember The President Who Shall Not Be Named. You know, the guy who wasn't in charge on Sept. 11, 2001; the guy who totally did not crash the economy in the fall of 2008; the guy whose name never, ever came up during the Republican National Convention because no one even remembers that guy.

Thanks to Romney's catastrophic run for president, including the post-election damage he continued to inflict on his party, they are practically singing George W. Bush's name from the rooftops, just to change the subject and to remember when'and try not to die laughing'they had a head of the party who wasn't such a disaster.

Seriously:

These signs of wear and tear to the Republican brand are prompting some of Bush's critics to acknowledge his political foresight and ability to connect with a diverse swath of Americans, although the economic crash and unpopular wars on his watch make it unlikely he will ever be held up as a great president.

'I think I owe an apology to George W. Bush,' wrote Jonah Goldberg, editor-at-large of the conservative National Review Online, after the election. 'I still don't like compassionate conservatism or its conception of the role of government. But given the election results, I have to acknowledge that Bush was more prescient than I appreciated at the time.'

Thank you, Jonah Goldberg, for assuring us that you're still mighty offended by even Dubya's faux concern for his fellow Americans'that long-forgotten laughable marketing term "compassionate conservatism" that means screwing the poor to further privilege the rich, plus starting lots of wars, plus also torture, but, you know, compassionately.

Then there's this interesting pick:

President Bush's press secretary, Ari Fleischer, was tapped last week by the Republican National Committee to serve on a five-member committee examining what went wrong in the 2012 election.

Maybe the RNC figures any alum from the Bush administration is something of a what-went-wrong expert, what with all that experience of everything going wrong.

'One of the party's biggest challenges going forward is the perception that Republicans don't care about people, about minorities, about gays, about poor people,' Fleischer said. 'President Bush regularly made a push to send welcoming messages, and one of the lessons of 2012 is that we have to demonstrate that we are an inclusive party.'

Ohhhh. Yes, well, the "perception" that Republicans hate people who aren't white, male, straight and rich is a bit of a challenge, isn't it? But considering that the party's platform in this election was pretty much, "Yes, we're totally serious about hating people who aren't white, male, straight and rich," you'd think Republicans would consider that "perception" a ... oh, what's the phrase? Mission accomplished.