This is the President. And I think it can be said with absolute certainty that George W. Bush is the worst President in United States history.
Imagine if this sputtering drivel came from your attorney in front of a judge. Or if this inarticulate marsupial was speaking on behalf of your company to shareholders. You’d shitcan the guy without a second thought. You wouldn’t even give him a golden parachute. Hell, you’d convince the Board of Directors to leave this incompetent to rot. No severance. Call security. Don’t even let the blackguard clean out his office. Throw the bum out into the street and let him dumpster dive. Let him struggle. He screwed you over, and he screwed you over bad.
But this is a man who is responding to a question involving the deaths of 650,000 Iraqi lives. Not a mere civil suit or a bad business deal. And he doesn’t even have the temerity to stare right back into the eyes of the reporters and tell them that, yes, Iraqi lives were lost and that he knows what he’s doing. Hell, even Lyndon Johnson had balls when he was saying utterly despicable things about Vietnam. This is the man who so many voters voted for because they would prefer to have a beer with him? I wouldn’t trust this guy to pick up the tab.
It’s bad enough that this tyrant is responsible for mass deaths and who knows how many grieving families, all in the name of a connection with WMDs that has never been proven, but that he so systematically destroys lives and, with that, any lingering impressions that the United States of America means well is inexcusable. Unpardonable. No different from a Pinochet or a Stalin.
He will never listen. He will never find a halfway point, even if it means bombing any country with a tenuous connection to al Qaeda into the Stone Age. He is an outright menace that every decent citizen must vote against by voting Democrat (if there is a Senate race) in a few weeks’ time. Someone must stop him, even if it’s a gang of pussyfooting Democrats whose political relevance is deeply in question. Particularly as they stare doe-eyed into the headlights and risk becoming as soulless and vacuous as our Dear Leader, who just so happened to kill a few hundred thousand Iraqis.
The reporters sitting in that lovely garden ought to be ashamed of themselves for not giving this murderous rodent the third degree. What, me worry?
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
Amen
As long as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton are around, Bush won’t even be the worst living president, let alone the worst ever. Carter did active damage, Clinton hurt us by doing nothing, and we are paying the price for having both of them in office today.
Well done! I love the “murderous rodent” pharse.
Somewhere in the stack of papers on my desk is a long report from professional historians who all agree: this IS the worst president in our history.
Oh for God’s sake. Some cretin calling himself “Matt” blames all of the last six years worth of fuckups, including Bush and his worthless advisors demoting the so-called ‘terrorism czar’ position from the cabinet, and then ignoring warnings of imminent terrorst strikes before 9/11, on Clinton, whose team thwarted domestic attacks in 1999/2000, whose administration at least took terrorism seriously and tried to nail bin Laden, and on Carter who was last President, let’s see, TWENTY-SIX YEARS AGO.
That’s just like your President, Matt – cowardly and weak.
Oh, Matt? Clinton? Carter? Try putting Bush in the category of James Buchannan. In fact, try putting him lower. No President in my lifetime has done the damage to this country Bush has. Not Clinton for sure. Not Carter. Not even close.
“Or if this inarticulate marsupial was speaking on behalf of your company to shareholders. You’d shitcan the guy without a second thought.”
Nice job Ed – in addition to everyting else, you’ve summed up Bush’s resume in two sentences.
Oh, crap. That above is me, not BarkingKitten.
Stalin is alive and well in the White House.