Our Long National Nightmare Is Over
By David Neiwert Tuesday Jan 20, 2009 1:12pm
Almost as much as the sight of seeing Barack Obama inaugurated president, the sight of George W. Bush leaving for Texas brings me not so much joy as a profound sense of relief.
I haven't felt this good since sometime before Dec. 12, 2000.
A lot of right-wing talking heads (see esp. BillO the Clown) have been dismissing Bush's longtime critics as mere "Bush haters" who saw him as illegitimate from the get-go and never gave him a chance. And it's true that many of us were motivated to defeat him from the day he took office in no small part because of the way he took office -- without even a popular plurality, foisted upon the public by probably the most dubious ruling in Supreme Court history.
It wasn't simply, however, that he was illegitimate; it was something much bigger than that. It was that he was the leader of a gang of political thugs who had stolen democracy from us. From a rotten tree springs rotten fruit; most of us could see well down the pike that the kind of governance the Bush intended would drive the country to the brink of ruin.
Of course, we weren't the only ones:
I remember trying to begin a series at my blog Orcinus back in late 2003 titled "Manifestly Unfit: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush," which opened with the transcript from this skit. I only wrote one more installment before I realized that documenting and detailing Bush's failures was a task beyond my abilities back then.
After all, there was a hardly a day that went by in Bush's tenure without some fresh outrage -- some fresh lie, some scurrilous appointment, some destruction of the public good. It was relentless. After awhile, we all developed Outrage Fatigue.
I mean, how many of you remember Enron? That scandal in itself should have been enough to reveal his malfeasance to the public for good. But it was swept away in a tide of other monumental failures -- not the least being 9/11.
Adieu, George W. Bush. And not a nanosecond too soon. Because today, it feels like we got our democracy back.
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GOOD RIDDANCE.
Ding dong!
The Chimp is gone!
Which old Chimp?
The Wicked Chimp!
Ding Dong, the Wicked Chimp is gone...
having prevented US terrorist attacks after 9/11, just as conservatives hailed Clinton for not having an affair after Monica.
funny
..the Anthrax attacks. So even here, Clinton beats Bush!
Clinton kept it clean since then?
that martial infidelity < incompetence in the face of warnings of attack.
Yes, the worst is over but this country's gonna have a hangover for a helluva long time.
People who won't even be born for another 75 years are going to be suffering from it.
The world seemed to shift back into a normal pattern shortly after noon, today. It was like a collective exhalation.
That was just me. I farted.
good one
Your time has come.
Yep, I felt it. I think I just gained back 5 years of my life.
Yep, I think I just gained back 5 years of my life...
Now let's never speak of them again.
Let the prosecutions begin. I want to hear what the sentences will be.
We want to hear more and more about prosecutions. This is a wrong which must be righted for us to truly be the country we are.
Please arrest that village idiot.
Ohh no no no, I can think of no worse thing than allowing the possibility that they be forgotten about.
Please let it be true. From your keyboard to Whoever's ear.
I only hope that Obama will seriously look into the malfeasance of the last 8 years and prosecute where necessary.
No way, no how. It's not really over. Justice hasn't been served yet. THEN it will be over.
Don't hold your breath. :(
The fact he issued no blanket pardons for himself, his admin, the CIA or the military for anything done, makes me think a deal has been made and I too worry that there will be no accountability.
Its almost like they've had it made from the beginning. Blanket pardon - no penalty. Deal made - no investigation/no penalty.
not until bush, cheney, rummy and the rest of the criminal cabal stand before the man to answer for their numerous crimes
APPOINT THE SPECIAL PROSECUTOR TODAY!
:D
IF they go after them at all, they'll do it on the sly. Start with something tangential like the politicization of the Justice Dept. for example and if the investigations lead to uncovering crimes of the higher-ups, well what can you do?
Personally I would have tackled Bush the second I finished the oath of office and demanded the sergeant-at-arms arrest him at once. I probably also would have pushed Cheney down the stairs. And maybe goosed Jenna.
heh. Notice he was sporting a wheelchair? I hope that whatever it is, he's uncomfortable.
Here's how it's done
moving boxes, but I think he was going for the last minute pity-play. Or more perversely wanted to show us all how evil he was by channeling Mr. Potter from "It's A Wonderful Life."
But I also pictured the SNL take on IaWL, where George leads all the townspeple in pummeling Potter.
as an angry George Bailey, a cursing Jimmy Stewart. :D
But it wasn't from lifting boxes of crockery wrapped in newspapers, like a regular person who's about to move would do. He obviously threw his back out hoisting those 200 boxes of documents into the paper shreader. I mean, destroying evidence is the one thing Mr. 200 million-a-year from Halliburton can't hire some pleb to do FOR him.
It was fitting that cheney go out in a wheelchair looking old and helpless because today that's all he was, just old and helpless. His power was taken from him and that was all that was left.
Being in the wheelchair and all I thought Herr Reichmarshal wanted to be remembered for imitating his movie hero. Anybody have any video of him grabbing his arm to suppress the salute?
Yes, but channeling Dr. Strangelove was RUMSFELD'S job, not Cheney's.
the outrage of the imprisonment of Alabama governor Don Siegelman. Rove's slimy fingerprints are all over that one. See how much
water-boarding Porky can take before he squeals. (Pun intended.)
Kenneth Star, again?
I can just see it. "Is there any semen in the Oval Office? No? Okay, then no crimes were committed. Bub-by."
someone do a DNA test on Jeff Gannon.
LMAO!
be a great investigation to start with. Jeff/Jim Gannon/Guckert is a creepy dude and blatantly unqualified as a WH reporter. Whose knob was he polishing? That would make the religious wingnuts crazy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5XG1nSlxuI
Daddy Bush had to take his idiot son home because he couldn't handle the embarrassment of over 2 million people waiting for Obama to be sworn in. Bush had to invite people to his inauguration, yet the largest crowd in history and people from all over the World are celebrating Obama/Biden. Now Bush is go home and booze it up and use drugs to ease the pain of being a complete loser. People booed Bush and cheered the Clintons.
but that was the part I found most repulsive about all this. The fact that President Bush Sr. and President Bush Jr. spent the last night in the White House having a "family dinner" as if the White House was just another one of their family estates.
Please, no more of these dumbass political family dynasties. The government of America belongs to the people of America, not the Bush family, the Clinton family, or the Kennedy family. The talent pool in America is not so shallow that we have to keep returning again and again to the same five or ten families to get our leaders. Don't give any more people the power of the public trust JUST because they were born with famous names!
our national nightmare might be over, but, if there is any justice, bush's nightmare will begin when the war crime trial begins.
and laura bush's nightmare sleeps next to her. she hitched her wagon to the wrong horse.
Booosh leaves behind him an array of catastrophic clusterfucks unlike any ever before experienced by any adminstration in USer history. Two unwinnable, hideously expensive, stupidly avoidable "wars," a shattered economy, collapsing national health, mis- and malfunctioning institutions of government, a horrifically divided populace (more than 60 million people voted against Pres. O), and a climatologically threatened planet.
Indeed, I think the GOPukes threw the ‘election,’ for the (understandable) purpose of escaping the escalating catastrophes of the Bush era, so that when it proved impossible to rectify them (as it almost certainly will), they would be able to prosper electorally from the chaos.
Boosh may in fact be judged harshly by 'history'; however his may come to be heralded (regrettably, but plausibly) as the regime that ’sealed the deal’ for the CorpoRat/Authoritarian/Globalist crowd. History is written by the victors, and there is no evidence that the Bushevik/Neo-Con orthodoxy has been vanquished, if more than 60 MILLION voters were willing to perpetuate it, in the face of the indubitable evidence of its corruption.
for not treating our PTSD quickly enough. We'll let the people who supported the war (both literally and figuratively) pretend that the "PTSD" is desired and healthy.
Shit, it was way more than a nightmare, it was a destruction of the country and parts of the world. It was also the biggest robbery ever in this country.
Okay, someone grab the mop and the broom and let's start cleaning this place up because now this is Obama's House.
Its OUR house, and hopefully we finally have a caretaker of our house who doesn't treat it like its his house.
Yep, it's ours but for four years we are letting the Obamas live there so in a way, it is their house for now.
I hope they offer up a heaping serving of justice.
Lets say our long national nightmare can begin to end now.
Lets face it, it won't be over until the damage Bush has done is rectified. And rectifying that damage must include ensuring it doesn't happen again. I think you all know where I'm going with this. Without investigations (Just so as a nation we know what the hell was going on) and without prosecutions for whatever investigations may uncover, the nightmare can't be over when the political heirs of Cheney/bush can just do it all again when they get the chance.
Granted I believe Obama is the person to do that rectifying.
After all, the criminals from the Nixon-Reagan-BushH.W. were in the starring roles of this passing criminal reign.
Cheney, Rumsfield, Negroponte, Baker etc out the wazoo: criminals that were allowed a second chance to screw us all.
Was a dark day for the rest of us.
He should have stayed drunk and spared the world this misery.
He should have left town in a manner more fitting for his current standing.
He should have been ridden out of town on a rail a long time ago.
Some assembly required.
I had something a little different in mind..
Yikes, I didn't know that had really happened to someone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqhaJToOy-c&fe...
we send Stewie to have a little exit interview with Bush.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AJ0SkbPxAk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuAVgWJ28Hw
The DOW is down over 300 pts. today. How long will it be before Fox and the right blame it on President Obama. I'm betting they will before the sun sets tonight.
nutcase and Grade "A" neo-con asshole Larry Kudlow has already started.
from the inside. Coming back from lunch when Lynn Nearing came on NPR and said that although Obama hadn't yet been sworn in, it was 12:01pm, and George W. Bush was now the ex-president.
..we had Joe Biden as acting President. He really did a good job! I hope he does as well as VP.
I drove down the street at Noon, blowing my horn. People must've thought I was crazy! APPOINT THE SPECIAL PROSECUTOR NOW!
40+ % of the country voted for the man. the first time was surprising, the second time was shocking (for me)...
lied to get us into an, at the very least, unethical war - and everyone had it figured out, whether or not they would be honest about it...
but, in 2k4, he got re-elected. that was the true nightmare for me, BECAUSE it wasn't a national opinion that he shouldn't be in office.
we who didn't want bush to be president haven't gotten our country back, it was simply handed over as a matter of due process.
the man and his admin spent 8 years wiping their a$$e$ with the Constitution, directly and deliberately violated and ignored the law (in my opinion), and yet enough people voted him back in to continue the status quo.
that is my nightmare. and fortunately it's obviously much more than just 40% of the US' nightmare, but it's still not a "national" nightmare.
as long as that remains true, the kind of crap we saw under bush can and will continue to happen
Wait, does this mean I can STOP taking my medications for Bush Derangement Syndrome? 'Cause you know, there was no RATIONAL reason for disliking President Bush, The Greatest Man Evah! No, my dislike of Bush was DERANGEMENT. I was simply INSANE.
Now the Right, their dislike for Obama is NOT derangement. No, no no no. It's the result of thoughtful, reasoned, and carefully considered stupidity. With more than a hint of racism. And entitlement. And classism. But not DERANGEMENT...
Don't stop taking your meds until they're all gone. Now down that fifth.
As his exit neared, I find myself thinking he's also the most tragic presidential character we've had. I don't mean tragic as in deserving of sympathy, but one who tragically possessed ambitions that so far exceeded his capabilities, he was doomed to fail.
Was he? Did he? I think history will write him one of- if not the- worst Presidents ever, but I think history will also inform us of how many of the "failures" were actually "successes" in the eyes of Bush and his backers. Hell, he might have done every single thing that he planned to do.
He didn't get the chance to blow Iran all to hell. That's probably his only regret.
I don't know. Worst president of the US? Absolutely. But there have been a lot of worse presidents, the president of the Selena fan club, for example.
I capitalized the "P". It should be understood. :P
the president of the Selena fan club, has the blood of only one person(Selena) on her hands. Bush is responsible for deaths of tens, if not hundreds of thousands on his.
that there were no Tejano performers at the Lincoln Memorial.
George Slow-pez doesn't count.
That's sorta like Stupor Mundi nuking the entire country of which he's the President.
So CFAmick has a point.
His regime succeeded brilliantly at what they were installed to do.
What was that?
To eviscerate as thoroughly as possible every recourse the People might have to resist the privatization of the Commons.
The only failure, to his bosses and masters, was his inability to privatize Social Security.
Virtually everything else he did was, from a certain perspective (the CorpoRat/Globalist/Militarist), splendidly successful, beyond their wildest dreams...
and i agree to an extent, but things are so bad right now that the entire neoliberal economic ideology has been exposed for all to see. and when the likes of greenspan come out rejecting neoliberalism, with more and more people coming to the realization that markets are never self-regulating, and (possible) reinvigoration of the left, i think the rightwing and the ruling class view bush as an abject failure. yes, we paid for wall street malfeasance, but it seems (in a brief moment of optimism) that the neoliberals and "free" market hypocrites are on the defensive and that has never happened since the curse of supply-sidism darkened the globe's doorstep...
you are precisely correct....... to the last syllable.
I bet after this long day the Obamas would like to go back to their new home, get a shower, put on something comfy, have a cocktail, a good dinner and just kick back and discuss the day.
They'll have to leave the windows open for a few days to get the smell of corruption, cow dung, and pleather out of the place, first.
get rid of the smell of pleather?
"...the sight of George W. Bush leaving for Texas brings me not so much joy as a profound sense of relief..."
Not me; he should be going back to Connecticut where he was born. Real Texans don't want him!
Send him back to where he belongs. Texas is a better place without him.
I been to Midland once, Crawford nonce, and hadn't been to Dallas since Jimmy Johnson's gang of thugs whupped the Horns back when they still played the Cotton Bowl while you were hung over.
Prosecute
Punish
The decorum due the pursuit of war crimes tribunals now demands gravitas.
In my view.
To repeat.
Anyone bothered to check out the DOW today? I just did. Its down 332 right now. Remember when that alone would be a catastrophe ? That will be lead n FAUX NOISE tonight " DOW RESPONDS TO DISASTROUS OBAMA PRESIDENCY " I can hear the pinheads now. God Bless and Good Luck Obama. I think you are really going to need the luck. Its a pattern.
The frightwing will jump on Obama tomorrow for not fixing 8 years of Chimps screwups fast enough. They will convince enough mouth breathers its Obamas disaster and the fickle US electorate will kick the Dems to the curb and the whole fucking mess can pick up where Bush,Raygun and the Neo Cons left off. That is why its important to prosecute these bastards to the full extent of the law no matter how nationally painful the truth will be. 911 included.
I mentioned it several comments up-thread. And came to the same conclusion. Fox and the right will blame it on President Obama.
I got called to the phone mid rant and noticed your comment afterwards. Funny though, how most of us know exactly how the frightwingers will react and spin and shit...LOL Obama is gonna need to flush the toilet a lot more times yet.
I just heard some financial talking head on CNBC raising hell because Pres. Obama hasn't done anything about the banking crisis. One of the other guys reminded him that he's only been president for five hours. The guy raising hell said that Pres. Obama should have had something ready to go at noon today.
:)
Funny, that's who it reminded me of too.
Im Canuck too and a little concerned....LOL i think thats where it ends though. Haven't seen my imitator much round here lately. The Col with the period after Col. Maybe he decided to respect my seniority afterall...LOL
be put on our money. Or at least Aretha in the Queen's hat. Although on the radio here they said it was Lizzy's mom's hat.
Yes, I'm sure they will. While ignoring the 4000 point drops that happened TWICE (once between 2000-2003 and again in 2008) while Second Leutenant Dingleberry was president. Conveniently blaming the first crash on Clinton, and the second on the fact that a Democrat might get elected. Yeah...
to Kennedy and Byrd? Give them a chance.
That's gotten to be run-of-the-mill lately. And it would have dropped for any Democrat being sworn in today. It's not like Wall Street is over-represented by Democrats,Greens and Socialists.
That's the meme of the decade, BillO. Seriously,
1) Bush stepped into office with his party in control of the House AND the Senate.
2) Bush had the most unified United States I've ever seen, post 9-11. EVERYBODY wanted him to succeed. He had a HUGE popular support.
3) Bush had nearly 8 years with his own House and Senate to basically do whatever he wanted.
In order for people to not have given him a chance, he'd have to have had to fight the House and Senate on everything, have had NO popular support and have had only one term. BULLSHIT, no chance. He had every chance and he pissed it away.
I agree 100%. I also agree that as happy as I am to see Obama finally in the White House the thing I'm most pumped about is seeing the last of Dubya, Dick, et al.
do what he wanted." And instead of ending abortion, he cut Paris Hilton's taxes.
Yeah, I have no patience for people who claim Obama is a baby killer. Maybe my new response will be "Obama's a LADY killer; he is one good lookin' brotha!" That will hit them at so many different levels they won't know what just happened.
2) Bush had the most unified United States I've ever seen, post 9-11. EVERYBODY wanted him to succeed. He had a HUGE popular support.
_____________________________________________________________________
I wonder, if 9/11 hadn't happened would bush have won a second term?
Anybody who remembers the first nine months of the incredibly lackluster Bush Jr. Administration, half of which was spent on VACATION, will tell you that he was well on his way to getting clobbered by a return to a Democratic majority in both chambers of Congress in 2002. He would have been the second Bush to be a one-term President for sure. Sadly, 9/11 was the best thing that ever happened to him and the plutocrats who backrolled his election bid.
but somebody is still going to have to change the bed linen.
Burn it! The bed, the linens, the pillow, burn it all and we'll get new stuff.
And the jars of urine?
Yesterday went by so slowly that at one point I thought my clock was broken. Today went by just as fast as yesterday was slow. I can't believe this day has finally come and is almost over. What a day!
a 300+ point drop. I guess the powers-that-be are preparing us for the ultimate fucking. they obviously were waiting for Obama before lowering the whammy.
I hate globalization.
I hate corporatization.
I hate the media.
< /end-of-tirade>
That was just the sound of the last of the Plutocrats moving their money to hedge funds in the Bahamas. If you want to see it JUMP by 300 points in one day, just wait until Obama closes the Tax loophole that allows people to invest in offshore tax havens.
His name should always be synonymous with mass murder, destruction, loss/theft of (two) national treasures, lost cities, mayhem, traumatization of the helpless and innocent, near obliteration of the constitution, rendition, toture, theft of Democracy, etc.
Good riddance, you sick fuck.
normal HUMAN being. you think this motherfucker has any guilt of what he has done to the US and the world. He won't even give it a thought.
Sociopaths don't feel guilt
I never argue with my woman.
My thoughts exactly.
Thank you Miss kitty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAnayUpbJYs
waving at at the airport. If he said he was going home, why is he comming to Texas. He is not a Texan. still with the lies to the very end. cowboymy ass, V Fox from Mexico said on TV bush was scared to ride a horse. I guess now he is out of a job he not going to act like a cowboy and move into his 2.1 million dollar house with servants.
Have you noticed that Pres. Obama can walk without waving? I think bush saw invisible people everywhere he went.
On fox today one of the talking heads said that bush was going back to Texas because he was born and raised there. I just had to laugh.
Born-again and raised there.
the only thing that comes out of fox is shit,shit and more shit.
...but I have a sad, empty feeling in my stomach. I feel as if I've been a witness to a period in our Nation's history that we all will be judged from...we've got a lot of shit to clean up.
Here are some thumbtack observations on the Inauguration, President Martin Luther King, Chief Justice Yoda, ex-Vice President Henry Potter and more.
Don't worry, I kid, I kid. I was kind to Obama. Really.
Not that I wish any ill on them or anything, but they can have him as long as they agree to KEEP him. Safely drunk and within their state lines so he can do no harm to anyone else. And Cheney can live in his basement.
This coming from a real Texan. I wish he'd go back to Maine or wherever it is he's really from.
I think he should go live with prince bandr, you know, the guy from his [Deleted. Racist-Sitemonitor] friends from saudie, the guy he had dinner with on sept12 in the w/h
Maybe we can convince him there will shortly be a nice piece of real estate available there, with more square footage than the house he has in Dallas?
Cheney could still live in the basement.
...you people gave us this demented, degenerate mother fucking blood drinker, it is only fair that you take his zero account ass back.
PS....Please keep your future "National politicians" where they belong, muzzled on a fucking chain in your goddamned junk yard, eating worn out tires. Be fair, this Nation doesn't deserve, nor can survive another one of your end of the world, 19th century thinking(?) assholes....no fucking thank you.
Bush may be gone, but he and Cheney have planted their seeds throughout the government and justice, and we can't afford to let them sprout. That requires hard investigation.
If you're referring to Cheney going around and jerking off under all the desks at night when everybody's gone home, you're right. But Bush didn't do that. He was saving his precious bodily fluids, like General Ripper.
I'm still not sure it's really over. Has anyone put a mirror under the nose of the Bush Admin to be absolutely certain? Fiction writers couldn't have written a more bizarre horror story. Not since Nero has the world witnessed such a time. The scariest part is that these last 8 years actually happened and could happen again! Let us please learn from history!!
I think they were the only sketch show to tell it like it is before being forced to reign it in.
now, if we could only get Pelosi and Reid to go with him...
I'm hoping they'll soon follow, now that G.W. isn't around to make them look GOOD by COMPARISON.
now that that incompetent fuck is gone.
Hallelujah!
Remember that he said one of his first priorities after he exits will be to "replenish the coffers."
I expect the man to show up in several places around the world with a shovel, digging for all those hundreds of billions of dollars gone missing during his reign. I'll bet he knows just where most of it is buried.
I trust that the IRS will be watching him closely over the next several years.
Now, will somebody please remove that 12 penny spike that has been festering in the back of my skull for the last 8 years?
He didn't even win a first term.
One Ohio Precinct reported 15,000 votes for Bush in 2004. The only problem was they only had 1,500 registered voters.
Who cares what Bush does? it's Cheney we needed to get out. Nasty old pump-headed cardiac cripple.
Gone
Dick Cheney looked just like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons today
Buh-bye, George.... thanks for nothing.
May you live long enough to hear history's judgment of your Presidency... since you actually seem preoccupied with it.
No one from Texas shall ever be allowed to run for any National offices.
Actually, that amendment would have passed a lot earlier if LBJ's belching rant about his "bung hole" hadn't taken so long to be released to the public.
Couldn't we just as easily say no one from Illinois should be elected since that where Blagojevich is from?
And boosh is from Connecticut (same as liebermann.)
We Illinoians at least had the common fucking sense to keep our bad seeds at home...and we impeached that asshole.
Ysb, the only way the people of your state can atone for this nasty stain you afflicted the world with these eight "black death" level years is to promise that no one from Texas will run for any National office for many generations.
Amazing lovely red sun and sunrise.
Yes 'red sky in morning, shepherds warning' but it still looked glorious, and it didnt snow today.
You must not live too near a body of navigable water. Around the Great Lakes it's "sailor's delight" and "sailors take warning".
Tue, 01/20/2009 - 16:28 — LeftandLeft
No one from Texas shall ever be allowed to run for any National offices.
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Not even me?
Does President Obama still have an opening for Court Jester?
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