January 19, 2009
In Retrospect
It's Inauguration Eve. Bush retrospectives burgeon. It's easy to see why he leaves office with his head held high, even though most reviews are not positive, and some think him delusional.
Face it. George W. Bush has accomplished exactly what he meant to accomplish, as set forth by the Federalist Society and the Project for a New American Century... possibly more. He has stuffed the Supreme Court with right wing justices, appointed a whippersnapper Chief who will undoubtedly be screwing women and minorities for decades to come, and stacked the lower courts with like minded individuals. He has taken apart most federal regulatory agencies. They are all declawed, in dysfunctional disarray, and lead by crooks with ulterior motives -- the CDC, the FDA, the SEC, the DOJ, and NASA to name but a few. He as established a private army, set up detention camps, made torture legal and tampered with the vote. He has castrated Congress, established a war that will never end to lend ultimate power to the executive branch evermore. He has eradicated the concept of privacy in our nation. We are wiretapped, watched, filed and databased. He has eliminated and/or disbursed the democratic voters in New Orleans. He has succeeded in privatizing almost everything but social security -- charity, education, national intelligence, national defense, the prison system. He has hijacked the US Treasury, not only with war profiteering and massive tax cuts for the wealthy, but with the recent $350 billion dollar blank check to his buddies. He has made vast tracts of public land available to developers, strip miners and other commercial pillagers. He has freed us from the bothersome constraints of the Constitution, the Rule of Law and the Geneva Convention. He's almost solved the energy crisis by winning the war in Iraq, that is if Obama doesn't drop the ball. He has arranged to destroy or bury records, to do much of what was done in secret. We won't know the half of it. He accomplished all this in only eight years, while taking two full years of vacation. A thorough and efficient job, if you look at it from his point of view. Mission Accomplished, as they say in the trade.
If this sounds like a complaint, it's not. In our opinion, the American people needed a self serving,. unconscious leader like Bush in order to awaken to the privilege of living in a democracy, and the urgency of taking an active role in it in order to preserve it, which we seem to have done by electing Obama. If Bush had been a little more subtle, we might have missed the point entirely.
Asleep yet? Don't despair
...In this moment before a changing world overwrites our memories of the era, let us pause to salute our constant companion of those years: The Onion. Other histories of the Bush years will doubtless be more factual, but none will ever be truer.
Theresa Nielsen Hayden has gathered a wonderful Bush retrospective from the Onion for our horror and amusement. Enjoy!
It's a shame that only Jon Stewart and The Onion accurately reflect the true history of this absymal administration.
Photo note: Looking backward - sculptures for sale at a modest price. Inquire at the Dakota office.
Posted by Dakota at January 19, 2009 08:27 PM