This Is The End

And so here I present the end of the list. I have already recounted 90 reasons I am celebrating the inauguration and the departure of George W. Bush. Today, on Bush’s final full day in office, I present the Top 10. These are all pretty well-documented, so I will try to keep it brief. I need to be done listing these things so I can be relaxed enough to enjoy Tuesday:

#10. Dick Cheney: George’s first act as a “decider” came when his daddy’s people made the decision to have old pro Cheney take over, lest anything big happen. It was often comical how little W. and Co. tried to hide the fact that Cheney wore the power pants in the relationship. With too many to choose, my least favorite Cheney moment may still be the 2004 debate with John Edwards when the Democratic contender politely reminded the arrogant jerk (after Cheney had said he was meeting Edwards for the very first time "on this stage") that the two had actually met and spent a little time together - and it was all caught on the videotape. It summed up Cheney at his most dismissive and pissy. Oh, that and the time some guy told him to “f**k off” in New Orleans.

#9. Karl Rove: The Puppet Master had his creepy hands on nearly every item on this list. When you bring a guy whose resume includes Watergate and seat him at the right hand of the Oval, you are basically saying – Guess what America…don’t expect a whole lot of truth. Rove developed the message and W. stuck to it. In my estimation the message he crafted was one of Fear. Rove created enemies, axes of evil and black and white arch characters who made it easy to demonize. Bush just played the mushroom clouded tune.

#8. Alberto Gonzales: How will we decide the worst thing about the worst Attorney General ever? Will it be the firing of federal attorneys across the country who favored fairness over party? Will it be the approval and allowance of torture, putting soldiers at risk for brutal retaliation, and putting America on par with brutal regimes across history? How about the abusive use of the Patriot Act and the shredding of the Constitution? Or the complete dismissal of the American people when testifying that he remembered NOTHING of his time in office? Or the hundreds of “missing” emails between Gonzales and the White House that is about as possible as Barney having ate Alberto’s homework? No, the worst thing about Gonzalez is that he, because of Bush, Rove, and Cheney – and the politics of fear - got away with it all.

#7. Stupidest Comment on the 7’s: Still, the Bushism to end all Bushisms, this one was both sadly comical, and frighteningly Freudian:

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004



#6. 9/11 and The Big Lie: I won’t go into much detail because anybody reading this can tell you that the attacks of September 11, 2001 were the lowest point of the past 8 years – regardless of who was President. But George W. Bush was the President, and three crimes occurred stemming from that day which, for me, will never allow him grace. The first is that it happened. It happened and he could have, at the least, been prepared. The second is that he continues to this day to claim he has kept us safe for the past seven years as if 9/11 never happened! This is the biggest deceit of the neo-Cons and one anyone with a brain must bat down the minute it is floated. That we have not had a physical attack on U.S. soil in seven years is great, but that is not because George Bush is President. We did get hit while he was President, and if he is taking credit for every day after 9-11-01, then he better as hell accept some responsibility for the months preceding that attack. Finally, Bush used 9-11 to launch an unnecessary war in the name of avenging the loss of 2,973 lives. The day the death toll in Iraq hit that number I wept, knowing he had just done it again.

#5. Iraq. There were no Weapons of Mass Destruction. There was no al Qaeda. There was no Osama Bin Laden. There was no chance for democracy. There was no honor. But Bush’s lies and misdemeanors were spread across our Nation in the form of red, white, and blue ribbon stickers on the backs of minivans and SUVs. “You are either with us” or with the terrorists, replaced open debate and investigation. On September 11, I warned friends that I was afraid Bush would take us into a war, when we should immediately rebuild the towers if we truly wanted to piss off the terrorists. But Bush came into office ready to finish what his dad started. And what did we get? Not safety, not less alQaeda, not more oil, and certainly not thousands of American soldiers leading a fight for human rights and safety across the globe. We could have rebuilt the World Trade Center several times over by now.

#4. The 2004 Election: Nothing can get me more angry in a shorter time than when I start thinking about the 2004 election. Mainly because we knew most everything that is included in this list before then – yet Americans were still gripped by the fear and lies that ooze from every pore of this Administration. Whether it was Swift Boats, the We-Hate-The-Troops-So-Much-We'll-Mock-Heroism-by-Placing-Purple-Heart-Band-Aids-On-At-Our-Convention, or voting crimes in Ohio, Bush suggesting Bin Laden was not that big of a concern, or just the level of creepiness which rained down every time Cheney would threaten an audience by painting John Kerry as a target for terror. But we knew about the lack of WMD, the lies to get into Iraq, the abuse of power, the rotten economy, no jobs, and that friggin’ Mission Accomplished stunt. Yet he won and then claimed a mandate. I honestly believe that if you voted for George W. Bush in 2004, you should not be allowed to vote…ever.

#3. Hurricane Katrina: I know George W. Bush is not responsible for the actual hurricane. But if his buddy Jerry Falwell can blame 9/11 on gay people, then I’ll go ahead and blame the actual hurricane on W. And the lack of response. And the racist comments by his mom.

#2. Dennis Miller: I know what you’re saying. “Huh?” But this is the high crime that should have led straight to the impeachment of George W. Bush. He made Dennis Miller stop being funny. I want Dennis Miller back. He drank the Kool-Aid at some point and we may have lost him for good.

And the Number One Reason I Am Celebrating the Departure of George W. Bush is:

#1. Valerie Plame: No incident, in my opinion, summed up the arrogance, evil, and ineptitude of George W. Bush’s residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue more than the outing of Valerie Plame. When the Administration, led by all of the names listed above, decided that the best way to deal with a doubter – in this case a public servant who told the truth about there being no nuclear materials being sold to Iraq despite the President’s public insistence/lying – was to make public that official's wife who was a covert CIA operative working on Middle East intelligence, they completely shattered any illusion that they were working to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Yes, Katrina, Iraq, and 9-11 cost many lives and billions of dollars. But in this act of treason (and, according to Bush Sr., this was treason) W. cast his entire Presidency in a shadow of fraud, pettiness, and disgrace.

Mp3: The Decemberists - Valerie Plame



As I look back over this list, I am sad. I am reminded of the lyrics from a cheesy Vietnam-era protest fable which seems so ironic at this moment:

“Go ahead and hate your neighbor,Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgment day,On the bloody morning after....
One tin soldier rides away. "