smiling-duck
iStock

Bash

George W. Bush, Go Home

Posted January 14, 2009

Some say that there’s no point in looking back. Yet the sorry specter of George W. Bush’s final presidential press conference has left us, as he always has left us, filled with so many, many more questions than answers that it’s 2:45 a.m. on a frigid winter morning and, yeah, of course, we can’t sleep.

We won’t waste time with the obvious question: Is Worst President in the History of the Galaxy in the midst of a not-very-well-disguised psychological crackup? (Those painfully unfunny jokes; that smirk to end all smirks and the rest of his twisted body language; all that suspense about just how far out of touch with reality his answers could stray before someone finally carts him off to the looney bin.)

We won’t dwell on cosmic concerns: How long will it take the U.S. — and the rest of the world — to recover from the horrors, the incompetence, the greed, the corruption, the apparent desire and amazing ability to cram as many awful acts as possible into what, after all, has just been eight short years.

We won’t EconoWhine and EconoWonder about how one sub-literate human being who lives in a bubble could wreak so much damage on the job market, the stock market, the global market, and on and on. Instead, we’ll confine ourselves to six simple questions:

1. What if our 43rd president had had an IQ higher than 43?

2. What if Al Gore had been president and, among countless other things, we’d spent the past eight years dealing with climate change instead of denying it?

3. What if W had been impeached for, well, you-name-it-he-did-it, any of the obvious reasons except oral sex?

4. Ok, forget impeachment. What if George W. Bush, instead, had been forced to spend one night, one single night, sans body guards, sleeping in New Orleans post-Katrina or Guantanamo Bay or your average, run-of-the-mill homeless shelter?

5. What if we knew that he knew (and actually cared) about all the damage he had done to so many people’s lives? (Forget that question. What the hell does it matter what he knows and cares about?)

6. What if, instead, for the rest of his life, however long that may be, George W. Bush was at the very least as unhappy as he was during his last presidential press conference? That would be something.

The Whiner wants to know: What do you think about when you think about W?

Reader Comments

  1. Jack Jr.

    Saw parts of the press conference. Glad you’ve written about it. Couldn’t believe how clueless the guy is. In retrospect, it still doesn’t seem believable that he’s been president for the past 8 years.

  2. tomlinton

    Remember the acts
    but eliminate his name from history

    Make the presidential library
    the smallest in history
    either at Guantanamo
    or Abu Grab

    Perhaps Iraq
    would like to put
    Dubya’s statue
    in the feet
    of the old Sadam

  3. old teacher

    Tomlinton, the poem is so fine. To what you wrote, I sugest an addendum:

    barefoot
    and strewn
    with shoes

  4. CMP

    Bush can’t be gone soon enough, Whiner, you are so right. And here’s hoping he suffers, even though that won’t undo any of the damage he has done or the loss of life and liberty that he’s responsible for. That press conference was a psychological study that Shakespeare would have relished.

  5. larry

    Econowhiner, I won’t argue about the legacy of the Bush years. But some of the mess we find ourselves in falls squarely on the shoulders of others. Financial executives who supported products they didn’t understand, individuals who bought houses they knew they couldn’t afford, conservatives and liberals alike who turned a blind eye to misbehavior as long as the gravy train was running on time. Smack Bush around a bit more if you want, but there’s nothing constructive about doing so. Look for root causes in how he managed to secure two terms. Push for personal responsibility to avoid getting caught up in such messes in the future. These things will have some traction. Beating up on a lame president will do little since most know his shortcomings and the 25 percent who don’t aren’t soon likely to be convinced otherwise.

  6. Bruce Coulson

    I try NOT to think about him, frankly; I have high blood pressure already. I suspect the historical reckoning of his Presidency will put him with Buchanan and Coolidge. (Not Grant; there really wasn’t that much classical corruption in Bush’s administration.) In fact, it’s hard to think of another President who actively did so much to harm his country.

  7. Nano

    While I agree with maintaining personal responsibility, Bush consistently spurned the advice and knowledge of people who were not a part of his inner circle. He was notorious for not wanting bad news, and his inner circle was made up of political cronies. He deserves the legacy he is getting, and no amount of time is going to change it.

  8. tfitz

    you go Econowhiner — right on. “How long will it take the U.S. — and the rest of the world — to recover from the horrors, the incompetence, the greed, the corruption, the apparent desire and amazing ability to cram as many awful acts as possible into what, after all, has just been eight short years.”

  9. abo gato

    I’ve long wondered if he and his cronies did this on purpose. After all, they got plenty of dough out of our misery for the past eight years. No bid contracts were just the tip of the looting of the treasury that went on. The rich always get richer, especially with a regime like this catering to their every whim. How much of the billions of dollars that went missing in Iraq do you think ended up in the accounts of the Bushes, Cheneys, Rumsfelds, et al?

    Now, here we all are, with our 401k’s in the trash can and just hanging on to our jobs (if we still have them) and wondering what the hell happened. Well, as I see it, G W Bush happened. I will never forgive him and will never forget that he allowed 9/11 to happen. All this happy talk about how he has kept us safe for the past 7 years is just plain horseshit. If people want to take any credit for him keeping us safe, they also must take the blame for the attack that happened on our shores. Call me a conspiracy nut if you wish, but I’ve believed from the beginning that they knew it was going to happen (Bin Laden determined to strike in the US) and they let it happen. They maybe did not know how bad it would be, but they let it happen so that they could do all the disastrous things since then that they really, really wanted to do from the start. It just gave them a pass.

    I will never forgive him for that. If the 2000 election had been decided by the voters and not the Supremes, I doubt the attack would have occurred the way it did. At least a Gore administration would have paid attention to the PDB’s.

    If there is a god and a hell, I want him to find out about it sooner rather than later. I hope to never have to see that smirk again.

  10. Another W

    “What do you think about when you think about W?”

    I think I want to change my middle name to begin with a different letter.

    Thank God and Greyhound he’s (almost) gone.

  11. amy

    It’s done, man. It’s done. It’s been done for a while now. He’s been the invisible president for the last five years anyway. Someday there’ll be some tremendous Cheney bio to sit on the shelf next to the LBJ and Nixon bios, but that story’s a long time off.

    I’ve been watching the Dems and wishing they’d class up the act. I’m not a Dem anymore, but I want my country to do well, and the runup here is not encouraging. This Burris business is a scandal — not because of Blagojovich, everyone expects the gov of IL to be madly corrupt, but because of the insane racial politics that followed, and because of Burris himself refusing to take his foot out of the door. Then there’s liberal radio commentators laughing at the corruption and the Obama nominations for minor offices, saying hey, pay to play, it’s the name of the game. And I’m here thinking, “Already? Can’t they clean it up for a freaking month?”

    I’m skeptical, too, of HRC as Secy of State, even though I supported her in the primary. She hasn’t got the foreign policy chops, and this smart policy thing she has…oy vey. It’s like a guy in a personals ad saying he’s got a great sense of humor. If it’s true, you don’t have to say so.

    I’m worried. I’m glad there’ll be a good party, that’s always nice in a rotten time, despite the money people will throw away and the distractions they’ll create for themselves. But I’m worried for after.

  12. Spokane Al

    When I think of President Bush I think of a great, humble man who kept us safe for many, many years. I see a man who followed his beliefs rather than the polls and sincerely believe that history will vindicate him much like it did Harry Truman.

    Sorry to disagree.

  13. Hope

    Wow! Spokane Al…a voice from the very small minority. I commend you for the bravery to post here and buck the tide. And confirm there are really people who believe that. Wow.

    When I think of Dubya, I think of a cocky dry drunk who has a thin veneer of civility barely covering his angry core. He would do well with a few AA meetings taken to heart.

    I agree with Another W…thank God and Greyhound he’s (almost) gone.

  14. The Whiner

    Everyone, thanks for your comments. This is an important dialogue — how can we move forward constructively until we come to grips with what’s happened during these past eight years?

    Special thanks to Spokane Al. Hope is right: It’s hard to put your thoughts out there when you’re part of a minority in any particular discussion. We don’t agree with you here, Spokane Al, but we’re grateful to you for sharing your perspective.

  15. chris

    Yes, I watched that press conference and I was never a fan of Bush – never. However, I find it hard to bash him, when the demi-god Obama is gearing up to do “who knows what” given some of his dubious cabinet choices and the incredible cost of his “celebration.” I use the term “celebration” as that is what others have used. I think it is terribly irresponsible of him to consider spending approximately one hundred fifty million dollars on these events given the state of the economy – which you so aptly report on. (And then to have the countries finances put in the hands of a man who can’t/neglected/forgot to pay his own personal taxes.) Bush? Not very good in a lot of aspects. Obama? Not getting off to a very good start – and he isn’t even in office yet. By the way, how many terrorist is your state going to take in when they get shipped out of Cuba?

  16. amy

    I’m very sorry to see that a plain and civil statement one’s views on a forum of invisible and largely anonymous people, who’re probably thousands of miles away, qualifies as bravery for you, Whiner and Hope. If you were standing by with baseball bats, OK, maybe. Otherwise, that’s not bravery, it’s simple disagreement.

    This is one demonstration of why we need more robust conversational media on the internet. We did have one a decade or so ago, in the form of newsgroups, when the existing net was mostly for academics. Very vigorous and civil debate went on there. We’ve moved to this format where the standard is “one person posts; the rest say, ‘Oh, I agree! How wise you are!’”, wait for more wisdom to fall, and actively resent people who break that pattern. Bad for public discourse.

    Baaaaaa.

    I hadn’t thought of Bush as a guy who kept us safe, though I’ve often thought how things might’ve gone with Gore in charge, and decided I’d rather have the gun nut than the vacillating rear-end-coverer. At least people are scared of gun nuts. I wasn’t any fan of the Strangelove routine for MAD, either, but when the Wall fell it did occur to me that it had actually kept us nuclear-devastation-free for 50 years, and that we might miss it.

    So we’ll see.