Who's the Slimeball?

Former President George H.W. Bush said he had "total disdain" for Michael Moore and called Moore a "slimeball." Moore's new movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, is likely to open eyes and help the current join his father as a "former" president.

But considering the slimy presidential election campaign George H.W. Bush ran in 1988, he should be the last one to criticize someone else for sliminess (or does he believe it takes a slimeball...).

For anyone who has forgotten, Bush (along with his RNC Chairman Lee Atwater) led one of the most disgusting and dishonest campaigns in recent memory, utilizing questionable advertising and speeches. Following the election, many news organization instituted Fact checks of candidates advertising to prevent future politicians from benefiting from lies the way Bush 41 did in 1988.

As one media outlet put it, Atwater was a "protage of the late South Carolina segregationist senator, Strom Thurmond, and personal Machiavelli to George Bush Sr. He's the man credited with coining "wedge issue." On his deathbed, he apologized for saying of Dukakis that he'd "strip the bark off the little bastard" and "make Willie Horton his running mate." His repentance made good press at the time of his death from a brain tumor in 1991, but his methods are still a blueprint for how we the living can run and win a nasty campaign."

Maybe the lack of grace and ethics is a family thing. After the 1984 vice presidential debate which pitted Rep. Geraldine Ferraro of New York against George H.W. Bush, Barbara Bush said she could not say on television what she thought of Ferraro, but "it rhymes with witch."

This from a woman whose family's accomplishments included sons (Jeb and Neil) who were involved in savings & loans that went under, and sons (Jeb & George) who possibly stole a presidential election.

Yeah, George you've got real moral authority to call someone a slimeball...