You know who can shut up now? Bush can STFU now.

Just when we were kind of on the verge of respecting the silence he thought he'd let Obama have--well, he screwed it up. Which is par for his particular course.

So here's some stuff he said:

"I know it's going to be the private sector that leads this country out of the current economic times we're in," the former president said to applause from members of a local business group. "You can spend your money better than the government can spend your money."

Yep. I could have spent my money better than Bush spent my money on a war in Iraq.

"Government does not create wealth. The major role for the government is to create an environment where people take risks to expand the job rate in the United States," he said to huge cheers.

Interesting. I don't suppose he thinks his govenment deserves to take credit for the wealth of Halliburton and KBR and Blackwater, which didn't necessarily increase the job rate here in the U.S., but did in....um, Iraq. Interestingly enough, it is generally supposed that the high defense budget of the United States has been about job creation. And that cutting the defense budget is about cutting U.S. jobs. As for risks, we risked a thing or two for the oil industry jobs, didn't we? (Lives?)

Re: Gitmo--

"I told you I'm not going to criticize my successor," he said. "I'll just tell you that there are people at Gitmo that will kill American people at a drop of a hat and I don't believe that -- persuasion isn't going to work. Therapy isn't going to cause terrorists to change their mind."

Which is awesome, because no one was thinking of giving them therapy so much as trying them and putting them in supermax prisons.

And on health care and socialism:

"There are a lot of ways to remedy the situation without nationalizing health care," Mr. Bush said. "I worry about encouraging the government to replace the private sector when it comes to providing insurance for health care."

Asked by the evening emcee at the 104th annual Manufacturer and Business Association meeting if he finds the new president's policies "socialist," Mr. Bush started -- then stopped.

"I hear a lot of those words, but it depends on --" he said, breaking off. He later offered a more diplomatic assessment: "We'll see.

There are a lot of ways to remedy the health care problems--the stake is in finding the best possible way. The two take-aways I've gotten from the national debate are these:

Why is the private insurance industry afraid of government providing competition in an allegedly free market? Can't they streamline enough to compete? Lower their overhead? Do better than a messy bureaucracy at "ensuring" health care professionals get paid for necessary services?

And--

Is the profit-motive at all compatible with lower health care costs?

Answer these questions, and get back to me on nationalization.

And since Bush nationalized a family vedetta by getting back at the man who tried to kill his Daddy using our troops, I just shake my head and blog like I do.

So, well, he can STFU, now. And you can tell him Vixen said so.