January 2009... End of an Error

This is the last day of the year 2008. A year when the effects from the missteps, failures and duplicities of the tumultuous eight years of the Bush administration came home to roost. Or, should we say, were flung at him.

As Bob Herbert laments today in "Add Up the Damage" (NYTimes).... "This is the man who gave us the war in Iraq and Guantánamo and torture and rendition; who turned the Clinton economy and the budget surplus into fool’s gold; who dithered while New Orleans drowned; who trampled our civil liberties at home and ruined our reputation abroad; who let Dick Cheney run hog wild and thought Brownie was doing a heckuva job."

The invasion of Iraq is a good example of the wrecking ball the White House mafia took to our country. Herbert reflects on the devastation.... "The Bush administration specialized in deceit. How else could you get the public (and a feckless Congress) to go along with an invasion of Iraq as an absolutely essential response to the Sept. 11 attacks, when Iraq had had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks?

"Exploiting the public’s understandable fears, Mr. Bush made it sound as if Iraq was about to nuke us: 'We cannot wait,' he said, 'for the final proof — the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.'

"He then set the blaze that has continued to rage for nearly six years, consuming more than 4,000 American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.... The financial cost to the U.S. will eventually reach $3 trillion or more, according to the Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz."

So just how does The Decider view this sorry Iraq-war chapter in his catalog of horrors?

"A year into the war Mr. Bush was cracking jokes about it at the annual dinner of the Radio and Television Correspondents Association. He displayed a series of photos that showed him searching the Oval Office, peering behind curtains and looking under the furniture. A mock caption had Mr. Bush saying: 'Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere.' ”

Couldn't you just die laughing.

Now The Decider is trying to tidy up the record of his apocalyptic reign by rewriting history. But, we were given a more accurate image to remember him by in the form of a size 10. No, not the measurements of his ego-inflated all-hat-and-no-cattle Stetson, but the shoes of an irate reporter flung at his head during his recent legacy-burnishing trip to Iraq.

For a Bush legacy summation after eight years of pent-up frustrations, for a you-deserve-no-breaks-today job evaluation.... on the your-place-in-history scale of 1 to 10, this shoe-fly moment was a ten plus.

On January 22 Barack Obama will right the national course and restore the forward momentum our nation enjoyed before we were so rudely interrupted.

That most of all is why we celebrate the arrival of 2009, a Happy New Year!

Bush's Sand Pedestal

While sniffing his Rovian glue and.... "Citing History, Bush Suggests His Policies Will One Day Be Vindicated." (WaPo)

The Decider, a legend in his own mind, has been trying to spit-polish his dismal approval-ratings and legacy by comparing his record on Iraq, terrorism, trade and other misfires to other presidents who were unpopular in their time.... Harry S. Truman, William McKinley, Franklin D. Roosevelt and honest Abe.

But, while Bush envisions "a distant future in which Iraq is a tranquil democracy, Palestinians live peaceably alongside Israelis and terrorism is a tactic of the past," historians have reached far different conclusions.

"In an informal survey of scholars this spring, just two out of 109 historians said Bush would be judged a success; a majority deemed him the 'worst president ever.' "

Still, his laughable comparisons are his only irrefutable arguments as he leaves the Oval Office in a flurry of legacy-retooling dust.....in response to Bob Woodward's question on how history would judge him, The Decider said..."We don't know. We'll all be dead."

What Bush has failed to grasp, however, is that the dead can speak from the grave....

Not just the graves of the thousands of soldiers and hundreds of thousands of victims of the Iraq war, but the grave of the hopes of so many Americans who looked to the Bush administration for justice and fair stewardship only to find they were buried under Bush-administration-facilitated corporate favoritism and greed.

Instead of trying to reframe his legacy with bogus comparisons, The Decider should just heed his own twisted logic.... "If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure." He didn't succeed.....

It's the Legacy, Stupid!

When asked about Bush's domestic and foreign policies, the GOP presidential candidates chorus.... "Bush who?" But, like the pesky mutt that won't let go of their pant leg, the Bush bellicose and Constitution shredding policies will be hard to shake

Still, they are hoping to detach themselves from the monstrous ruin wrought by The Decider.... "Looking Past the Elephant in the Room, GOP Contenders Keep Distance From Bush Legacy." (WaPo)

Take GOP candidate Fred Thompson who pines for the good ol' days.... so much so he even thinks there is still a Soviet Union. Like GOP icon Ronald Reagan, he's a little vague on details. But, he knows things used to be better. "I think back to 1994," he rambles, "We need to adhere to the principles that made this party great and that made this country the greatest."

Of course, Democrat Bill Clinton was president in 1994 as the GOP stormed into control of Congress. But Clinton kept a tight rein on that Congress... remember the famous budget standoff that led to the shutdown of government in November 1995?

Clinton refused to sign a bill to keep the government going because it required Medicare recipients to pay more for some premiums. GOP House Speaker Gingrich played chicken with Clinton, thinking Clinton would back down rather than close down government.... and, Gingrich ended up with egg on his face when he had to back down.

Hoping to make a quick getaway from the Bush years, Sen. John McCain is revving his Straight Talk for a more aggressive government. And, Mitt Romney suggests that the GOP has drifted into the embrace of "big government" and must return to acting as "change-Washington Republicans."

Well, actually John and Mitt, the problem is that the Bush administration has been too aggressive with their foreign policy, and the embrace the Bush administration has led us into is "big corporate interests."

The GOP candidates are finding it heavy going, trying to put distance between themselves and the Bush White House. It's like the old golf story about the guy who had a bad round of golf after his buddy passed out on the course... "it's take a shot and drag George."