Ellen DeGeneres & George W. Bush acted chummy at a football game

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Yesterday, the Green Bay Packers played the Dallas Cowboys at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. As we all know, George W. Bush is a big sports fan, a big football fan and he used to be invested in the Cowboys. So he was obviously there for the big game. What surprised me (and many other people) was that Ellen DeGeneres and her wife Portia de Rossi were there too, also to watch the game. And they were seated next to Dubya and Laura Bush. And they all seemed to get along well.

We’ve talked before about the whitewashing of Bush’s legacy and how Donald Trump was basically the best thing to ever happen to how people think about Bush’s presidency. We’ve talked about in the context of his friendship with Michelle Obama, who seems to genuinely like him. People are always like “well, Michelle is awesome so if she likes Dubya, he can’t be all bad.” I also think there’s an issue with the younger peeps not knowing history, or caring enough to know history. Like, I enjoy Bush’s late-in-life chillness too, but I still remember how he f–king lied us into an illegal war where thousands of people lost their lives, and how he set the stage for all of the f–kery we have now. Both of those feelings can co-exist. I think those feelings can coexist… for George W. Bush, not the people who are nice to him. I’m not going to yell at MObama for being nice to him. And I’m not going to yell at Ellen for sitting next to him. But other people can disagree…

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41 Responses to “Ellen DeGeneres & George W. Bush acted chummy at a football game”

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  1. Maria says:

    Uh, no.

  2. Lala11_7 says:

    Yea…

    If you cape for the man that worked OVERTIME behind the scenes to put that POS Kavanaugh on the SCOTUS….

    Or who lied about WMDs to get us into one of the most HORRIFIC wars known to man…or participated in election fraud and damn near treason to steal the POTUS….

    I don’t care who you are…

    You’re no friend or ally of mines….

  3. Dee says:

    Gross.

  4. Mousy says:

    Im starting to realize that you get to a certain level of wealth, personal politics dont really matter/exist. I feel like Misha Nonoo’s wedding was a good example of that.

    • Jb says:

      Exactly. The picture of Ivanka eating breakfast with Kloss and Nonoo and I’m sure the Sussexess (smart enough to know how bad that would look) would have been there too. These people do not care as long as they’re not affected. They can do speeches and do so many posts about the injustice of it all but then go party it up with the people behind the madness and say “oh I don’t agree with their politics but we’ve been good friends sooo”. Hypocrisy and no self awareness runs rampant within the lives of the Uber wealthy and privileged.

    • JIMMYWHO says:

      it’s all a front

  5. Mumbles says:

    In Michelle’s defense, it’s not like she socializes with him by choice. She sees him at events and is often sat next to him. Even if she didn’t like him, she has to be polite. I do think her praise of him in interviews is a little much but again, she can’t really say anything that bad about him. But I do wish her words were a little more muted and neutral.

    But those who choose to socialize with him – I don’t think he should have a moment’s peace in his life for that lie of a war. And for the dirty campaigns he ran. And for stacking his courts and administration with religious right extremists.

    • Who ARE These People? says:

      Amen.

      So I guess it comes down to whether Ellen happened to be seated next to him, or they all bought tickets together. That said, what happens? Do basic ingrained manners take over or what? Am I the only one who thinks, “What would I do in that situation?” Not that it’s ever gonna happen.

      Bush was and likely still is a sadistic creep.

      • Snappyfish says:

        That’s a luxury box at AT&T stadium. The people in those seats sit where (& with whom) they choose

        He was an atrocious President. Lied to get us into illegal wars & furiously worked the phone lines to assure a SCOTUS seat for Kavanaugh. Hired the purely evil & amoral Chaney to do his dirty work. He hid his evil behind his “down home TX charm” BS.

        So NO

        I also have never bought Ellen’s nice persona. It’s a facade. I have always loved Portia (Ally McBeal) & she seems smaller and more fragile since her relationship & subsequent marriage to Ellen.

      • JIMMYWHO says:

        @snappyfish I am glad there’s still people like you here, I am here for it! SO many people don’t want to believe in these things but the evidence is right in front of them.

  6. Lightpurple says:

    I always thought he was his father’s puppet. Doesn’t excuse the horrible things he did. Thousands died, home an abroad, because of him.

    And he really seems to be aging rapidly. I know he’s 73 but the Clintons, Biden, Warren, and quite a few others are in the same bracket. He seems to be showing it the most.

    • Erinn says:

      I figure losing both parents close together has probably done a number on him stress wise. It does seem like he’s aged A LOT in the last couple of years. He looked pretty much the same for quite a while, then BAM.

      I do feel like he was a puppet in a lot of ways. Like you said, it certainly will never excuse him of the things he’s done, though.

    • Ann says:

      I have similar feelings about W. I always thought of him as a patsy. Not just to his father but to all the GOP power players. He was perfect on paper to be the Republican face of all the evil that happened during his administration. That does not make him innocent at all, but he’s less guilty than the people who put him in office and those that controlled the strings during his presidency (Cheney, Bolton, Rumsfeld, Roger Ailes…).

  7. OriginalLala says:

    This is rich people bullshit – they all front about being activists and yet when push comes to shove, they socialise happily with people who are the very embodiment of what they are supposedly fighting against. Like someone mentioned above, the Nonoo wedding showed us that quite well.

    • swedish chef says:

      If you mean their bullshit is treating each other with respect and saving their arguments for a proper time and place and enjoying themselves (yes, rich people can enjoy themselves too) and not being prickly pears because they have different ideals then you and everyone else maddened by this image are the ones with the problem.

      • OriginalLala says:

        Cozying up to a war criminal and bigot isn’t just being “polite” and respecting someone else’s opinion though, but nice try.

      • swedish chef says:

        He has not been changed with war crimes, your opinion is nothing but that. Nice try.

      • Piptopher says:

        lmao imagine thinking that american war criminals get prosecuted. I guess you’re just waiting on Hitler’s conviction to come through because you know hE wAs NeVeR cHaRgEd

  8. Jenns says:

    This is a great reminder how Trump will absolutely have his image rehabilitated by the media. They’ll paint him as a trailblazer who, with no political experience, just said what he wanted to say and connected with voters.

    There is nothing good or likable about this man. Nothing. I still stand by my opinion that he was way worse than Trump as far as presidents go. That still can change, of course, because Bush had 8 years and Trump only has 3. But Bush was evil, terrible human being, who surrounding himself with fellow evil, terrible human beings, left this world way worse than before he took office, and basically paved the way for Trump and Co.

    • Mumbles says:

      I think you have a point. Trump is a terrible president, let’s get that out of the way. The only thing that Bush did better was a more humane view on immigration. On every other count, Bush was as bad if not worse than Trump when it comes to policies. And say what you will about Trump, many people have tried to goad him into military interventions in Venezuela, the Middle East, and so far he has resisted.

      Is Trump gross? Yes. Is he cruel? Yes. But he shows us who he is. Bush was a piece of garbage he pretended to be a Holy Joe, born-again regular guy.

    • JIMMYWHO says:

      Agreed!

  9. Valiantly Varnished says:

    Ellen isn’t an ally of any kind. People need to stop mistaking her “nice” persona on her show for who she is in real life. Because they definitely aren’t the same. Just ask people who have worked for her.

    • Mumbles says:

      Plus I don’t even think her show is very nice. She makes mean comments about people’s videos and some of her games are kind of humiliating. But she sure is nice to her celebrity guests.

      • hnmmom says:

        I agree! I think those games she loves to play (or put her audience through) are mean spirited and about either humiliating or scaring people. Plus, she loves to scare her celerity guests when they are on, even the ones who ask her not to. I have never liked that she does that, what kind of host wants their guests to be anxious and fearful that she will do something to them?

      • Booney says:

        She’s incredibly passive aggressive. I can’t understand why she has this rep for ‘being nice’.

    • Susan says:

      I’ve always thought you could see Ellen’s mean streak on her show. The way she listens when people are talking is offputting and disinterested and I can see that she isn’t happy to be there or particularly likes anyone. It’s all a fake persona.

  10. janey says:

    er, isn’t she just sitting next to him being polite and not an arsehole? Did she arrive with him? Request the seat next to him? What am I missing? I know he’s a terrible human but I’m not sure what else she could have done. She’s there to enjoy the game not enter into a political debate.

    • JIMMYWHO says:

      Those are box seats, its the “you can’t sit with us!” section where you get to pick. Bush problem has stakes on those seats.

  11. Louisa says:

    I’ve always felt that Ellen’s public persona was fake and she was actually pretty nasty. But this doesn’t really bother me as here she is in the same position and Michelle O. I’m sure she didn’t arrive with the Bushes or request to be seated with them. Should she have asked to be seated elsewhere? Maybe but I don’t know how possible that would be.

  12. JanetFerber says:

    Lala11-7, You are perfectly right. No matter how personable or cuddly he seems, he’s a moronic, lying, lazy, war-mongering criminal. Yes, I say it. There were no weapons of mass destruction, but George W. had a Freudian drive to start the Iraq War (“Saddam Hussein tried to kill my father”). A lot of war-profiteering by (Vice President) President Dick Cheney and so much life lost on both sides. Some American soldiers died because of the shoddy equipment supplied them–I remember a pic of an adorable 26 year old American soldier electrocuted while taking a shower because it wasn’t grounded. And that mofo Cheney gets a heart transplant and is dandy after so many young men (and women) had their lives snuffed out. I just can’t.

  13. JulieCarr says:

    He’s a war criminal. If the world was at all fair he and Blair would be in cells right now. Since we can’t have that, at the very least he should be ostracised. It’s revolting that civilised people tolerate his presence and act friendly towards him.

    The fact that he *seems* like a nice guy is the whole problem. That’s why we got stuck with him in the first place. If he didn’t seem like the ‘kind of guy you could have a beer with’, hundreds of thousands of people would still be alive. That people are still stupid enough to trot that out after seeing where it got us…it blows my mind.

    Also, I don’t get how the Trump comparison makes him look better. Sure, he wasn’t quite as stupid, wasn’t quite as embarrassing, wasn’t quite as uncouth, wasn’t quite as openly bigoted and hateful, wasn’t quite as blatantly corrupt…and yet he still did far, far more damage to people’s lives than Trump has so far. If anything Trump should make him look worse. The excuse for Bush was always that he was out of his depth, but now we have a President who’s barely lucid and only acting on hate, and he has nowhere near the blood on his hands Bush does (and not for lack of trying). That should show people that what Bush did was very purposeful and not a case of some doofus accidentally committing war crimes.

    • DaisySharp says:

      Well, a lot of people say this, but after trump set the kurds up for genocide overnight, I don’t think this will hold true much longer.

      • Neverremember says:

        Not protecting someone (as much as I think that decision is cowardly) is not at the same level of crime as starting a war that killed up to a million people, destroyed a country and created a vacuum that continues to cause tremendous harm in several countries all for a lie.

        Trump has a long way to go to meet GWB’s crimes.

  14. TeddyPicker says:

    I’ve never bought Ellen’s pal-ing around, just like you persona.

    Like Billy Murray said, after you get famous you get two years to be an asshole and then you have to sort it out. She was a trailblazer and will always remain an important figure in the history of LGBTQ recognition and progress, but at this point in time she is just an entitled, overprivileged elderly lady who clearly puts status before beliefs.

  15. DaisySharp says:

    I mean, I certainly well remember how they demonized LGBT, and put anti-gay ballot initiatives all over the country to help them get out their ” Christian” voters. It’s her life, she has freedom of association. So does Michelle Obama. Can’t say any of this impresses me though. Can’t say I don’t smh over it.

  16. Piptopher says:

    I’m considering getting this tattooed on my forehead so I don’t have to scream myself hoarse: AT LEAST 350,000 civilian Iraqis were murdered by the US and this president. Likely, it was much more, some estimates are as high as 800,00.

    That’s Pol Pot numbers right there. Done with this lack of historical knowledge.

  17. Thebarb says:

    George W. never owned part of the Cowboys. He owned part of a baseball team – The Texas Rangers.

  18. Neverremember says:

    On a slightly vapid note, GWB seemed to age much better than most during his years in office but the years seem to have whacked him hard recently