It is that time of year when columnists, pundits, movie critics and even bloggers tend to write "Best" lists for the preceding 12 months. This particular New Year's Eve we stand at the juncture of a truly great event, the End of the Bush Era in American Life. Perhaps then it is fitting to reflect on some of the singular accomplishments of the Bushian National Nightmare not only of this past year, but of the preceding seven as well.
1. The Complete Absence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq: We all have our personal favorites, I'm sure, but for me this event, this occurrence, this unbelievable fact, represents Bush's Sistine Chapel Ceiling. I consider it the single greatest error ever made by any President of the United States in the history of the Republic. It is difficult to get one's mind around it because you blow your own mind in the process. Regardless of latter-day historical revisionism, the fact remains that the main, the chief, the only rationale for invading Iraq was that it constituted an act of preemptive self-defense (surely very controversial even at that) against a "clear, present and gathering danger" to the security of the USA. Not a single cannister of nerve gas, nor a single vial of anthrax, nor a gram of weapons-grade uranium has ever been found within the borders of Iraq despite our virtual ownership of the country for the past six years. This colossal blunder, this incomparable error in judgment, constituted the basis on which we committed the military forces of the United States with consequences which have been detailed on this blog and everywhere else for numerous years.
2. Hurricane Katrina: The range of Bush's incompetence is perhaps his defining characteristic. While the American public watched the city of New Orleans drown on national television, Bush, FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security remained unaware that there was any sort of problem there. Bush breathed a sigh of relief and remarked that we "had dodged a bullet."
3. The Reintroduction of Torture by a Modern Twenty-First Century Democracy: This is another of Bush's signature accomplishments. As with Iraq & Katrina, I think it will take years, perhaps a decade, before the enormity of what Bush has done in this field can be truly evaluated and placed in context. Bush specifically approved the use of waterboarding, a form of torture devised during the Spanish Inquisition and prosecuted by the United States against the Japanese as a war crime following World War II.
4. The Establishment of a Concentration Camp in Guantanamo: As the stories leak out, it becomes increasingly apparent that Bush, with the aiding & abetting of his consigliere Alberto Gonzales, created a legal black hole in Cuba where hundreds of innocent men who had nothing to do with a "war on terror" were incarcerated in cages and denied, for years on end, any form of challenge to the legality of their detention.
5. The Obstruction of International Efforts to Deal with Global Warming and Ocean Acidification: Perhaps in no other arena have Bush's innate anti-social tendencies wreaked greater havoc, and with such ominous long-term consequences, than in his obdurate, non-scientific, malicious interference with the international consensus that drastic and immediate responses are needed to deal with climate change. He has sided with the yahoo, know-nothing idiots who have watched passively as the accelerating effects of climate change (which have tended, in nearly every instance, to be worse than the long-range predictions of the IPCC) have engulfed the world.
These are highlights, but of course any summary of Bush must be truncated to avoid rewriting something approaching the combined length of War & Peace and Moby Dick. Historians will have to figure Bush out in the fullness of time. One question that always perplexed me: what was Bush for? It doesn't suffice to say he was for a "strong America," because he ignored the clear warning signals preceding the attacks of 9-11. He wrecked the military by overusing it in unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He destroyed the nation's economy through a reckless and stupid regime of "deregulation." He leaves behind a trillion dollar annual budget deficit for the US government, reeling safety net and health programs, and the essential bankruptcy of all 50 states. Had he actually designed administration policy with the specific intent of damaging the safety and common welfare of the American citizenry, it is difficult to see how he could have surpassed his actual record of destruction. 75% of the American population disapprove of his presidency and are "anxious" for him to leave office. The other 25%, of course, are clinically insane.
So one must look out upon this vast landscape of destruction and conclude, as perplexing as the conclusion might seem, that this is actually what Bush wanted. He wanted to wreck the country and found the best (which is to say: worst) people he could hire to help him do it. As Sherlock Holmes instructed, in deducing the truth one must eliminate all possibilities until one is left with a single explanation that fits the facts. And that explanation, however unlikely it might have seemed at the outset, must be the truth.
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