John LeBoutillier Ponders America's Future, Tries to Stay Upbeat
Though the public wisely returned him to the private sector years ago, former Congressman John LeBoutillier somehow weaseled his way back onto the public stage as a guest on the Imus in the Morning program. Which, as it turns out, is pretty good news for everybody.
Imus has taken to asking guests how their lives are working out, and LeBoutillier was no exception. He reported that while things are going swimmingly for him, he’s very worried about the country.
“This country is in horrible trouble,” he said, and began to compare our current national nightmare to the Great Depression in the 1930s, until Imus stopped him.
“A lot of people are just getting up now, trying to have breakfast, getting in their Benz, listening to the I-Man, driving to work,” he explained to LeBoutillier. “They’re not interested in you bumming them out.”
LeBoutillier continued anyway, further comparing our current mess to the 1970s, when President Jimmy Carter presided over steep unemployment numbers and interest rates. Imus has always thought Carter was a creep, and reminded LeBoutillier what the late writer Hunter Thompson said about him while covering the Democratic convention in 1976: “Once you get to know Jimmy Carter, you’ll be begging for Richard Nixon.”
But electing Presidents in reaction to their predecessor’s flaws is nothing new; as LeBoutillier pointed out, Carter was only elected because he was Nixon’s polar opposite. Ditto Obama and George W. Bush, who LeBoutillier has never liked.
not a genius“If his name had been George W. Shicklemeister, he wouldn’t have been president,” said LeBoutillier, who was briefly fired from Newsmax ten years ago for criticizing Bush.
Now, he is similarly unimpressed with Obama, who he believes was elected “as a Messiah” to save the country, “which was asking too much of any person.”
Lately, LeBoutiller has found himself wondering if America, as a country, could “go down,” something he sees evidenced in stunts like Pastor Terry Jones burning a Koran this weekend on the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
“It’s beneath America,” he said of the Pastor’s plan. “We’re too good to do stuff like that.”
Asked who would be a good Republican candidate for President, LeBoutillier paused for a few moments before vaguely saying, “Someone who encapsulates a little bit of the outside anger that we see happening in the Tea Party movement today, but is not so divorced from the establishment of this country that they can’t take it and fix it.”
Pressed by the I-Man to be more freakin’ specific, LeBoutiller said he hasn’t identified any one person yet. But he’s certain it isn’t Sarah Palin, nor is it Mitt Romney. “I can see the Republican Party, in 2012, imploding in a civil war that will allow Obama to be reelected,” said LeBoutiller, all dolled up today in a suit and tie.
“You look nice today,” said Imus. “What’s that all about?”
-Julie Kanfer
Reader Comments (1)
he is a great guest