It's over. Really, it's over.
Numerous times over the past eight years I have discussed the concept of "Outrage Fatigue," the Bush administration's purposeful effort to bury the nation under such an avalanche of cronyism, malfeasance, deception, disregard for the rule of law, and brazenly stacked bullshit that we would simply accept it as the natural state of affairs. Previous presidents found out the hard way that a scandal can cripple an administration. Bush's lasting contribution to the presidency was the discovery that, as animals herd together so that predators cannot target any single member, piling 1001 scandals on top of one another negates the damage any one could cause.
I tried to get up the nerve for a retrospecticus of two terms of this administration of nitwits and thugs. Suffice it to say that like the rest of the nation I am simply sick to death of George W. Bush and everyone associated with him. Once again I think back to the words of the famous epilogue to the Lincoln assassination once the conspirators were executed. The Evening Star noted, "In the bright sunlight of this summer day the wretched criminals have been hurried into eternity…We want to know their names no more." That is the entirety of what Americans want from this administration, this (now ex-) president: to go away. Go away and never be heard from or seen again. Get out of our sight while we attempt to put band-aids on the gaping wounds left by eight years of willful negligence and thundering incompetence. We never want to look at any of the Bush inner circle again unless they are seated next to a team of defense attorneys and attempting in vain to testify for their legal freedom.
In lieu of a retrospective I tried to think of the quintessential Bush moment, the single image or anecdote which can be used decades from now to summarize the experience of living in Bush's America. That is a tall order. Eight years is a long time. I dare you to think over those years and try to remember every disaster, scandal, and legal subterfuge wrought by this administration. No single example can encapsulate everything that happened, but I humbly submit the following as the quintessential Bush Presidency moment: the testimony of Alberto Gonzales, Monica Goodling, and Sara Taylor in the DoJ scandal. That scandal itself is unlikely to be historically relevant, but that testimony…holy shit.
What better sums up the past eight years than Sara Taylor, who went from VP of the College Republicans to White House Political Director in the span of 3 months, testifying about her oath of loyalty to the President? Who better represents the kind of people Bush appointed to run the most powerful nation on Earth than Monica Goodling, the vacuous, unqualified hack from Pat Robertson University whose deer-in-headlights testimony looks more like an SNL skit than historical reality? But if I have to pick one single moment it has to be Alberto Gonzales with that idiotic oops-I-shit-my-pants smirk on his face testifying about all of the things he didn't recall (hint: everything)
I don't really have to stick to a single example, do I? Because the time he denied that the Constitution grants the right of habeas corpus (nearly blowing Arlen Specter's jowls off in the process) is pretty awesome too:
This sole example doesn't provide substantive information about everything that went to hell over 2,922 days, but when I need to show my kids (or more realistically my students) the five minute version of 2000-2008 I will use these videos and say, "These are the kind of people who were in control of the largest and most powerful government in the history of the world." And that, as improbable as it may seem, says it all.
(chime in if you think there's a better Bush-in-nutshell moment)
j says:
My vote for best Bush II jingo: "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job!" *as they talk amid a flooded US city*
Rob says:
i think the better question is which press-nickname best sums up 2,922 press-nicknames?
Shane says:
Perhaps it is just because they are fresh in my memory but the pathetic attempts to sum up his own administration are remarkable for their complete cluelessness, pathetic lack of any appearances of being presidential, smirky unregretful incompetence. They sum up for me the entire administration pretty well.
dbsmall says:
I'm still looking.
That last video is awfully damning…but I'd rather see similar damning material from W.
OBL will be taken Dead or Alive
Bring it On
Mission Accomplished
Imminent threat of Mushroom Cloud
My Pet Goat
Harriet Miers
As awful as these 8 years have been, and assuming we actually recover…
what still nauseates me is that ~50% of the voting public wanted him back a second time. And >20% of the population approves of the job he did.
Other than appointing John Roberts (whose appointment Obama voted against, but gave reasons), I can't think of a single other act of W that had a positive result, or whose intent was a positive result for the country.
I watched a clip from his "welcome home" rally in Texas, and I have an immediate, visceral response to his arrogant, frat-boy, lying, cheating, attitude. But what bothers me most isn't the attitude or the actions. It's that he *won*.
You know, it just seems so grossly offensive that this catastrophe had a better 8 years than me. I'm a good, smart, hard-working person who empathizes and acts with virtue. He's none of those things. You just want someone like that to get their comeuppance, and he didn't.
FMguru says:
I remember the exact moment I realized we were in deep, deep shit – that the people running the railroad weren't just standard-issue corporate greedheads, but dangerous incompetents who stood a good chance of bringing an end to the American Experiment. It was during the run-up to the Iraq War, after the UN inspectors reported their 400th consecutive investigation of a suspicious site that turned up nothing. A spokescritter (White House? Pentagon? I forget) came out and said that the fact that the inspectors haven't found any evidence of WMDs just shows how dangerous Saddam's WMD program was, because he's putting such enormous efforts into keeping it hidden. At that moment I knew that we were going to war no matter what, that all the "evidence" was bullshit, that the crazies were now in charge, and that this was going to be a generation-spanning disaster.
kulkuri says:
After each outrage when you would think it can't get any worse, it did!!
Jude says:
tie:
"I can't Imagine Osama Bin Laden understanding the joy of Hanukkah"
-or-
that bold: "I'm the 'Decider'" proclamation
either is mind-numbing daft beyond reasonable comprehension. Good riddance, jagballs.
J. Dryden says:
Bush, after his less-than-1%-election victory, announcing his intention to pursue Social Security privatization: "I have political capital, and I intend to spend it." Starts with a shoddy, if not downright false premise, exaggerated to achieve relevance, and then uses it as an excuse/justification for a poorly conceived and horribly executed decision, splitting his party in the process. A hat trick of masterful proportions, and quintessentially "Dubya."
Chris says:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rO3F6mZUaE
Bush decides to do a photo-op at an elementary school after the first plane hits the WTC and reads My Pet Goat after the second plane hits the WTC. Simply stunning. Bush had no business being President and was in way, way, way over his head.
j says:
Oh, one other thing I forgot, that is an even better 'wagonhalt': National Intelligence Estimate is published in late 2007 saying that Iran does not have any nuclear weapon ambitions, and they abolished the program in 2003. FOUR. YEARS. AGO.
And Bush knew about it before it went public, yet "Mr. Bush continued to warn darkly of Iran’s nuclear weapons threat, invoking World War III, despite the new information." -nytimes
Michael says:
I hate every one of these evil motherfuckers. Good fucking riddance!
Cassie says:
After watching that last video all I could think was that if things were truly right in the world, after that session the zombie corpses of the founding fathers should have risen from their graves to hunt down a terrified Alberto Gonzales through the streets of DC to feast on his brains and vital organs. Preferably after raping him. They would have a few stops to make after that too…
I know that just because Obama is in office it doesn't mean that things are going to be all rainbows and unicorns, but…
^%#&^^&)(*)(&%&^ THANK FUCKING GOD HE IS GONE HE IS GONE HALLELUJAH HALLELUJAH THE NIGHTMARE IS FINALLY OVER I CAN'T BELIEVE IT WENT ON THAT LONG JEBUS CHRIST THAT WAS AWFUL AND I FELT SO DIRTY AND SAD AND FRUSTRATED AND DIDN'T UNDERSTAND HOW PEOPLE, MY NEIGHBORS, COULD BE SO CRUEL AND SO IGNORANT OF HISTORY TO LET THESE THINGS HAPPEN, TO LET THAT MAN DO THEM… UGH BUT IT'S OVER, IT'S OVER, IT'S OVER. THE BAD DREAM THAT REALLY WAS, but it's over, it's over…..thank god…..