The Bush Legacy: Epic Failure

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Los Angeles Times reported this week that Bush administration officials received a two-page memo entitled "Speech Topper on the Bush Record," the talking points state that Bush "kept the American people safe" after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, lifted the economy after 2001 through tax cuts, curbed AIDS in Africa and maintained "the honor and the dignity of his office." For Bush's staff, upbeat talking points on his tenure – Los Angeles Times

Say what?

"Bush World" is not part of the reality-based world. As an unidentifed White House aid told author Ron Suskind several years ago, "we create our own reality." Bush World is a world of ideological propaganda and talking points regurgitated daily from the Drudge Report, to talk radio, to Faux News, to conservative columnists, newspapers and publications. An entire echo chamber of conservative media has been built to delude Americans – and themselves – into believing that up is down, black is white, and war is peace. It is the nightmarish world of George Orwell's 1984 writ large.

Despite this echo chamber's best efforts to reform the legacy of George W. Bush through revisionist history, reality-based history will remember George W. Bush simply: "Worst. President. Ever." The Bush legacy is one of epic failure.

(The descendants of Presidents James Buchanan and Millard Filmore may now rejoice in finally being relieved of their title.)

Osama Bin Laden in his wildest dreams could not have imagined causing as much destruction to the United States as George W. Bush and his sycophant supporters have succeeded in inflicting upon this country in eight short years.

Bush failed to protect America from foreign attack on 9/11, ignoring repeated intelligence warnings of an impending attack. His response was to shred the Constitution and set the Bill of Rights afire. His war of choice has ground our military into the dust of Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving our preparedness to defeat an enemy Bush has failed to defeat after seven long years still in doubt, and America more vulnerable than ever. Bush enjoyed birthday cake and playing guitar, indifferent to the suffering of his fellow Americans who were dying in the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. And for his final act, Bush has succeeded in destroying capitalism and begun our descent into socialism in an attempt to forestall possibly the next Great Depression into his successor's administration. Someone else will have to clean up the disaster that George has made of this country.

No George, history will not be kind to you. History will condemn you, and deservedly so.

Keith Olbermann did a quick summary of the Bush legacy on Countdown the other night. The transcript and video follows.

OLBERMANN: President Bush tells interviewers he does not care how history will portray him but in our third story tonight, “The Los Angeles Times” has obtained an internal White House memo giving Cabinet members talking points for painting history a rosy portrait of Mr. Bush, even though his image will only get worse as new and damning facts emerge. 

What does the memo say and how are we obligated to correct its bizarre claims? To start it says Mr. Bush, quote, “Promised to raise standards and accountability in public schools and delivered the No Child Left Behind,” an act so poorly received, “The Times” points out, that it became a standard applause line this year from Democrats.

Also from the memo, “He curbed AIDS in Africa.  Its spread has slowed and Mr. Bush has won phrase for this” but he has not won any praise from withholding funds from groups that prevent condom use, a proven life saver, in favor of abstinence only programs, which have also failed in this country. Also, Mr. Bush‘s his foreign aide puritan, Randall Tobias, quit last year after patronizing an escort service linked to prostitution.

Also from the memo, “Mr. Bush lifted the economy with his tax cuts” and quote, “responded with bold measures to prevent an economic meltdown.” In 2005 he told a 57-year-old single mother of three, one of the mentally challenged, that it was, quote, “fantastic, uniquely American that she had to work three jobs” unlike half a million people that have no job as of November in the first presidency for decades during which family earning power fell and income disparity continued to rise, the meltdown he prevented, now having claimed several Wall Street institutions, which had weathered 1929 and 9/11 or 43.

And of course, the old stand-by quote, “He kept the American people safe.” Not counting 20 percent of his first term, January 1, 2001, until September 11, 2001. On 9/11 he sat reading “My Pet Goat” for seven minutes after learning America was under attack and then covered up environmental danger at Ground Zero.  And failed to provide for the health of rescue workers. He helped bin Laden‘s family flee the country, opposed the 9/11 Commission, opposed the Department of Homeland Security, tried to outsource American‘s port security to Dubai, did not keep us safe from the shoe bomber, alert passengers and crew did that, did not keep five Americans safe from anthrax and never caught their killer, still has not caught the killer of 17 sailors aboard the USS Coal, still has not caught the killer of 3,000 on 9/11, outsourcing that to Afghans, turning that country into a narcostate giving bin Laden a safe haven in the region of Waziristan by literally endorsing a truce that Pakistan signed with the Taliban there.

And most of all, not keeping safe 4,200 Americans dead in his war, a war that made us less safe, invading a country that posed no grave or gathering threat, provided a check on Iraq and igniting insurrection by disbanding the Ba‘athist Party, creating a Muslim theocracy purged of its moderate intelligentsia, one in which freedom has marched backwards for women and Lebanon too elected a Muslim theocracy run by Hamas, no less.

Keeping us safe? Terrorism is rising worldwide.  The still thriving enemy has claimed Pakistan‘s Benazir Bhutto and thousands of people in India, including 200 in Mumbai just last month.  Russia can now invade U.S.  allies without fear of retribution. And Mr. Bush failed to prevent Kim Jong-Il from joining the ranks of nuclear powers, despite even more ample warning than he received prior to 9/11. He lifted not a finger to keep a major American city safe from wind and water.

And what, finally, of the claims of talking points that Mr. Bush has always upheld quote “the honor and dignity of his office.” You must define dignity downward to find it in a lie. The lie of mission accomplished. Of upholding the Constitution or protecting Habeas Corpus. That we do not eavesdrop without warrants, we do not eavesdrop on Americans. The lie that we do not torture, that we do not play politics with justice, that we do not use the wheels of justice to crush dissent, that we do not betray those who serve us in secret, that we uphold rather than commute the penalties for those who do, that we do not stage fake news conferences, do not censor science, do not plant propaganda in Iraqi newspapers nor pay U.S. columnists who write it in American newspapers. Or push respected Americans to vaporize their honor and dignity with lies to the world. Or lie about the causes of the credit crisis, high gas prices or even that he watched the first plane hit the North Tower on TV.

Where is the honor of vowing a crusade, of daring those that would kill American troops to “bring it on”, of promising to care for the troops after you put them in harm‘s way without body armor or up-armored vehicles? Where was the honor, the dignity in giving a dead soldier‘s mother a presidential coin and telling her, “Don‘t sell it on eBay.”

His memo revealing yet another lie.  He does care how history will portray him. And now he knows.