Last night, President George W. Bush gave his final address to the American people. He seemed to acknowledge that most of the world wants him to screw off back to Crawford or Dallas or Paraguay or wherever, yet he seemed immensely proud of himself. He was incredibly self-referential, and listed off his accomplishments. What I found most surprising is that he still subscribes to this belief that it's right to go kick the shit out of some other sovereign nation and make them reestablish their whole government, for freedom. Now, this is debatable, and I'll concede that yes, Iraq (and the Middle East at large) needs to function as a 21st-century state, but it's hard to credit this administration (I'm being nice here) as accomplishing this effectively.
However, he was grinning with that same smug grin he's addressed the American people with for the last eight years. He also took credit for the government's response to Hurricane Katrina, which less resembled "disaster relief" than it did "10 helicopters, 30 buses, and a stadium full of poor people stagnating for a month". He took pride in the decisive action taken by the government to combat the oncoming economic crisis, and feels he'll be vindicated as history moves ever onward. I'm not so sure.
While Iraq and Afghanistan may be able to become free, prosperous democracies, Bush's legacy will be that of the brash zealot who plunged ass-first into war in some misguided nation-building exercise. The man was given the keys to the world and promptly attempted to careen it off a cliff like Bo Duke. He refused to hear opposition, surrounded himself with lackeys, cronies, and general imbeciles, and he'll never admit he was ever wrong. Join me and most of the world in welcoming George Bush Junior to retirement, about nine years too late.
I'll leave you with a previously undocumented look inside the West Wing at President Bush and his staff that does quite a good job of summing up his administration as a whole.
16 January 2009
Chunk Light Politics
This is going to be, at least in theory, a regularly updated blog about politics, as well as whatever else manages to hold my attention long enough to post about it. I realize that having a blog is only adding to the massive swirling vortex of inane shit out there for public consumption, but what the hell, right? You only live once.
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