Editorial

Currently George W. Bush is running around presenting a gentler face, and among the TV interviewers and press commentators here, he’s having some success saying that no one can or should judge him and his presidency today, since such judgment can only be rendered by history.

But like everything else presented by G.W. Bush to the American public, this assertion is false, intended solely to deflect normal responses to his actions.

George W. Bush is unequivocally the worst president in American history, and assuming he is not as unintelligent as he so often appears to be, he must know history will finalize that judgment.

How can it not?

History will not fail to note that this man was questionably elected in the first place, and has in eight years effectively driven the greatest and most respected nation in the world into the gutter. Uncle Sam is now in rags and, instead of being the symbol of hope and prosperity, a power with the strength and will to do good, Sam is seen on one hand as a beggar with his hand out to foreign bankers and investors, and on the other as an arrogant bully with no concern for anything but his own point of view.

A simple, yet incomplete, listing of Mr. Bush’s ‘accomplishments’ will suffice to illustrate why there is no hope in history for this terrible president.

1) G.W. Bush inherited a huge budget surplus from outgoing Democrat William Clinton of some $127 billion and has turned it into a $455 billion deficit. Simultaneously, he made the U.S. the world’s largest debtor nation, with China as one of its principal bankers, holding a mortgage grip on the nation and its future.

2) Mr. Bush and his partner, Richard Cheney, created a right-wing litmus test to assure that only ideologues were appointed to all the government’s regulatory agencies, not to conservatively administer such all important bureaucracies, but with the clear intent of undermining their regulatory mission. This is what happened to the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation), FCC (Federal Communications Commission), SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) and many others. They also filled the Justice Department with such individuals and used the department to provide legal justification for the decisions of the executive department, as well as using its investigative and prosecutorial power politically to bring charges against Democrats, prominent and otherwise, in an ongoing effort to assure GOP long-term dominance in the hopes of making America a one-party state. They used the same tactics in the Defense Department, effectively silencing dissent and ultimately pushing into retirement any senior officers who disagreed with them.

3) George Bush set himself up as an imperial president who was not only above the law, but was a law unto himself. He used signing statements as a principal tool, distorting that process so that he could declare various legislation from Congress null and void as it applied to him. But he also made unilateral decisions in contradiction to long standing precedent and sometimes in defiance of the Constitution, then used the Attorney General and the Justice Department to develop a legal rationale.

4) Mr. Bush pursued a personal agenda in initiating war with Iraq, which has cost 4,221 soldiers lives to date, and an official tally of 30,920 wounded; the latter number is generally considered soft and it is believed many more men and women in the armed services should be included in that number. In all events, many of the wounded are severely crippled, and these numbers are small compared to the deaths and injuries incurred among the Iraqi’s, who Mr. Bush continues to declare he rescued. The Bush/Cheney administration tried to hide the American casualties by bringing bodies home at night, etc., and showed callous disregard for the U.S. wounded until the scandals at Walter Reed forced them to do otherwise.

5) The actual perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks have largely escaped, including Osama bin Laden, due to Mr. Bush’s decision to curtail efforts in Afghanistan in favor of attacking Iraq. It should also be recalled how many times Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney lied publicly to the American people and to the world at large about Iraq.

6) The international goodwill given to America after the 9/11 attacks has been fully squandered by the Bush Administration, which conducted business in the manner of an arrogant, imperial and autocratic nation. What was a justified attack against Afghanistan was abandoned, unfinished, and now that poor nation is again besieged by radical Islamists and the fight there will now be much harder.

7) The Bush Administration sought to undermine American freedoms and individual rights in ways large and small, beginning with the opportunistically fast development of the so-called Patriot Act, but followed by right-wing judicial appointments and behind-the-scenes efforts everywhere to limit traditional freedoms while monitoring phone calls and spying on citizens.

8) Mr. Bush has pushed forward oil drilling and coal mining in some of the most beautiful parts of the nation, many of which involve national parks.

9) Mr. Bush sought various ways to break the protective wall separating church and state, and always on the behalf of intolerant, right-wing Christian theology.

10) Mr. Bush and his administration turned a blind eye toward, if it did not outright encourage, the plundering of the American treasury and the U.S. economy. Wall Street and bankers of all types were tacitly and sometimes overtly encouraged to exploit a bizarre free market zone, the U.S. economy. Private contractors were given a green light to take over tasks that were normally the province of the Defense and State Departments, and to do so with little or no oversight or concern for costs.

There is no doubt that the reason the nation and now the world is currently in a severe ‘Recession’ is because of Bush Administration actions and policies. In fact, if it weren’t for billions being used to prop up banks and other institutions, this would clearly already be a Depression. As it is, it is a remarkable mirror image of the Republican laissez faire policies of the 1920’s that led to the Great Depression. If the Bush/Cheney Administration had purposefully set out to wreck the nation, it could not have done much better.

Much, much more detail could be provided, but it’s unnecessary here. Historians will gladly take up that task, and the result will be devastating for Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who have escaped impeachment but cannot escape the verdict of history.

1/2009