THE BUSH PRESIDENCY: TRAGIC FOR AMERICA

As we begin the year 2009, we can finally see the end of the Bush Presidency on January 20, and that date comes not too soon.

The tenure of George W. Bush in the Presidency is already rated as possibly the worst of our history, rivaling that of James Buchanan, Warren G. Harding, Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant and Herbert Hoover.  Even these Presidents had some virtues, as for instance, Buchanan, Pierce, Johnson and Hoover only had one term in office and Harding died after two and a half years in office.  Grant, like Bush, served two terms, but he had the virtue of being our most successful general during the Civil War.  Bush, on the other hand, came into office under a cloud of being appointed by a partisan Supreme Court which had no authority to intervene in the contested election,  and he proceeded to do tremendous damage to America in just about every possible way.

No one could have imagined the disaster awaiting us.  Bush lied to the nation about the danger of Iraq, a war now ending its sixth year with the loss of over four thousand US soldiers and over 30,000 wounded, half of them severely, and no immediate end to the mess.  Bush dropped the ball on Afghanistan and that war seems interminable as well.  Bush was lazy and not up to par on intelligence, and had he been otherwise, MIGHT have prevented the shock of 9/11.  He undermined our respect in the world and did tremendous damage to our credibility and alliances with our European allies.  America’s international standing is at its low point in the period of American world leadership since 1945.

Not only was our foreign policy horribly twisted by Bush, but the impact of his Vice President, Dick Cheney, was to promote evil and destroy our Constitution by endorsing the use of torture and the violation of the civil liberties of our citizens.  In the process of fighting world wide terrorism, we saw our government set out to destroy our own democracy and belief that America was a special place that would always stand for good in the world. 

Bush also promoted economic policies that made the rich richer, the poor poorer, and sent many in the middle class into a spiral of economic collapse that has now led to the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression.  Great fear and uncertainty remain as to just how low our economy will fall in the new year.  Many millions of Americans will be so damaged by the collapse of housing,  employment, and retirement plans, that it will take probably at least a decade for a full recovery from the disaster we are now witnessing. 

Bush’s failure to come to the aid of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 will also contribute to the sense that he might go down as the worst President in US history.  His speech after that disaster which made him briefly sound like Lyndon Johnson at his best on the Great Society will continue to promote cynicism that one could believe anything he said or advocated while in office. 

Bush also presided over the demise of the Republican party, which only belatedly has repudiated him and his record, hoping to revive and return to power, but it seems as if they are going in the wrong direction, when they enthuse over Sarah Palin, condemn Bush’s belated actions on financial rescue as "socialism", and make it clear that they have no intention of appealing to the various interest groups that brought them down in the election of 2008.  As long as the GOP remains the party of religious zealots and is heavily southern and Appalachian rural whites, it has no future.

Bush was an embarrassment much of the time in the White House with his statements and actions, even bragging that he did not read the newspapers, and he set a bad model for young people by seemingly repudiating the need to be knowledgeable and educated.  But now suddenly at the end of his Presidency, we are being told by Karl Rove that he and Bush competed with each other for how many books they could read annually.  For one to believe that Bush read more than one book a week is beyond all credibility. 

Bush promoted the "big lie"  technique and emphasized the glories of ignorance and narrow mindedness, not the kind of traits one would wish in the White House.  As he moves back to Texas later this month, one can say "good riddance", and wish that he remain in private life out of the public eye, as he has been a disgrace and leaves us with more cynicism and pessimism about politics than anyone since Richard Nixon, and even he had more virtues than Bush!  Imagine that and weep for our nation!

Let us hope that Barack Obama can regain our dignity in the world, restore health to our economy, revive our Constitution and civil liberties, make us a country again of "we",  not "me",  and convince us once again that we can believe in our political leadership as a model for our children!