All through his farewell speech, I kept asking that same question - why is he smiling? His eight years in office have been one disaster after another. He's changed Iraq from a dictatorship to a democracy of sorts, it's true, but a democracy that is closer to Iran than the US.
He's overseen a criminal enterprise, with men like Bradley Schlozman, Alberto Gonzales, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby breaking the law in service to this regime.
His minions politicized every level of government, from the DOJ to the CIA, even installing a Soviet-style political officer in places like the EPA. The Surgeon General was told to mention Bush's name 3 times per page in every speech he gave. Too bad we didn't hear the good doctor give a speech about genital warts.
He squandered the budget surplus he inherited, presiding over a debt that now totals more than 10 trillion dollars, a large part 0f it owed to China. He squandered the world's good will and sense of shared purpose with his "go it alone" foreign policy. He squandered something no president in my lifetime has ever had - the unified will of the American people.
He's dismissed Congress with the dubious theory of the Unitary Executive which means the president doesn't have to abide by any law he doesn't agree with.
Like the generalissimos of a Banana Republic, he's legalized torture and made people disappear. He tried to create a dubious monarchical power that said he was able to identify anyone, for any reason, an enemy combatant, stripping US citizens of all of rights. Not even the right-leaning Supreme Court could swallow that without gagging.
He's elevated terrorists, who are criminals, to the level of soldiers by calling this a War on Terror. His biggest claim to success, that he's kept us from an attack is true only if you think his term began on September 12, 2001 and we forget about the anthrax that targeted media people and Democratic leaders. Those postal workers who died are just as much victims of a terror attack as the people in the WTC.Last night he asked us to remember his speech on the rubble on September 14th, probably so we'll forget that on September 11th he ran away, earning him the title of Commander Bunnypants.
And last night, he smirked and grinned and told us what a success the past eight years have been.
I guess we're all just too stupid to see it.
2 comments:
After the speech, Jen remembered how he, in his campaign in 200, he claimed he wanted to run the government as a business. And true to his word, he ran it like every other business he was involved in: he ran it in to the ground.
Of course, he's smiling. After eight years as president, anyone would be looking at their watch going, "It's not noon on the 20th yet?"
Doesn't matter if your the reincarnation of George Washington or the Warren Harding of your generation. And Bush is most definitely the latter.
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