With any luck, George W. Bush will simply disappear into the gated suburbs of Dallas, ride his bike around his ranch, pretend to stock his library, play golf in his sweat-soaked shirts and stay out of the way. His astonishing ego has compelled him lately to make the rounds, burnishing his "legacy," rewriting history, and distorting a clear recent public record, still fresh in everyone's mind, with ludicrous fantasies about his "competence." I think he argued that FEMA's handling of the Katrina disaster in New Orleans was actually first-rate, just as one example. The most stupendous screwup in U.S. military and foreign policy history, invading a country to disarm them of an arsenal which they absolutely and completely lacked -- Bush called this a "disappointment." Bush is that most tiresome of human specimens, a dull and slow-witted man who for reasons known only to himself thinks he's the smartest guy in the room.
Everyone is ready to turn the page. Various liberal commentators have urged that investigations and/or prosecutions of members of Bush's "team" move forward under the Obama Administration, given the manifold (and manifest) prima facie felonies under the FISA law and the War Crimes Statute. Regardless of Alan Dershowitz's opinion as a "criminal trial attorney" that Bush/Cheney could beat the rap on the basis of national security (just like Jack Bauer), I doubt that's the case. (Having watched Alan get his clock cleaned by Johnny Cochran in a mock trial a few years ago, I think Alan must have meant to say a "criminal appeals attorney.") Once the full extent of the gratuitous abuse of prisoners came to light, the rampant, sadistic torture for no reason other than the appearance of being tough guys, an inflamed jury would go to town on those two erstwhile cowboys.
Dershowitz misses the salient point -- Bush's secret weapon, what (real) lawyers call an "affirmative defense." Bush's unwatchable, intolerable person. Prosecuting Bush would mean that W would not go quietly into that goodnight. He'd be in our living rooms for years to come, doing his girlish mincing and head-ducking, slaughtering the English language in front of an array of microphones, strutting from the court house with a splayed-finger wave of his little right hand. And we'd have to watch. After eight interminable, awful years, eight full years of my life as an American tarnished and devalued by the incompetent bumbling of this pretentious goof-off -- and we still wouldn't be done. More Bush, all the time.
I don't think I could take it. So okay, O. You're right again. You're really a smart kid, I'm starting to see that. I'm going to check my own ego at the door for awhile. I was over-employing it, trying to figure out too much, because I knew I could trust absolutely nothing that Bush ever said. If I wanted to have any grasp of objective reality in these United States Under Bush, I had to build that comprehension from the ground up, because Bush went to work every morning (well, maybe half the mornings, whatever was left after deducting his 77 vacations while in office) with the express determination to mislead, obfuscate and lie.
It's true that not dealing with Bush's crime spree will leave the country with a damaged collective psyche. We're not going to think of ourselves in quite the same way ever again, not after eight years of this guy and his gang. That's part of the price of Bush. But for a little peace, a break from all that he stood for, maybe it's for the best. Dealing with the problems he left us will remind us everyday of his true legacy. That's inevitable. But at least we won't have to look at him, or listen to him, or watch him fake his way through another Presidential day. That's pretty good. Ordinarily, I never wish any part of my life away. Every day is precious. But man -- is it Tuesday yet?
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