I had been working on a long, detailed entry about how I was so grateful that epic failure George W. Bush was finally leaving office. It was going to be a point-by-point retrospective kind of post, going year by miserable year. I'd have started in 2000, which seems so long ago, with a stolen election and Katherine Harris. I would have segued in to the failures of 9/11, followed by the tortured logic of his apologists ("Bush has kept us safe since then...!"). And speaking of torture, it wouldn't have been hard to come up with things to say about the atrocities of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and a criminal war, founded on a whole tapestry of lies, still being waged in Iraq. I would've worked in the fact that things still aren't going well in Afghanistan, and that the actual perpetrator of 9/11 is still at large.
It would have practically written itself on the domestic front. The failure of No Child Left Behind. Failed immigration reform. Failed Social Security reform. So easy to weave in the current economic disaster. So easy to talk about a crumbling infrastructure, joblessness, economic engines falling apart, market giants collapsing.
And then there would be Hurricane Katrina. And W "fiddled" while Rome drowned. A disaster, a city changed forever. And a guy too stupid to know what to do about it, or care. Heckuva job.
A city displaced and Americans face-down, dead in a deep brown murk. The smell must have been unbearable. Of course, it can't compare to the stink of the failure of George W. Bush.
There's even the softballs. "Mission Accomplished." Unable to name any mistakes. The idiotic and condescending nicknaming of reporters.
For my own sake, I'd have included a fair amount about how he has failed the government itself, not just America, through failed -- sometimes criminal -- appointees. Who knows if the venerable Department of Justice will ever be the same. Who knows if the Department of Interior can recover. Can we trust HUD again after a legacy of corruption? What about the GSA? FEMA? Sadly, there's more.
I used to work with the people in the Federal government, so maybe that's why I have a soft spot for this particular issue. By far, the people I worked with and met -- the career officials who make our government run -- were hard working, honest, good, decent people who did what they did because they loved the job and they loved America.
George W. Bush, through really, really awful appointments, sullied the government. It's just one of many of his legacies of shame and failure.
But as I laid out the case for our collective eight-year disdain, I finally came to realize something: George W. Bush has jumped the shark.
I mean, yes, his corruption and failure will be with us for a number of years -- maybe decades. But I'm done talking about this guy. And he doesn't deserve our consideration or thought any more. There are others, like Betty Cracker, like Kevin at Ghost in the Machine, who have done better on this subject that I would.
George W. Bush spent eight years failing our country. I won't reward him with any more analysis.
Time for change we can believe in. Right?
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