He kept us safe....

From the evils of small appliances and cleaning fluids on aisles 4 and 6?

And we haven't even checked the garage and basement yet...

Sad to no longer be king?

Sad that he forgot to pardon everybody including himself? Sad that nobody is sad to see him go? Sad that Obama's inauguration was so stupendous?



Who cares?

One last shoe

For George.

The real reason

Cheney hurt his back...



He's going to miss his secure superduper secret undisclosed location.....

At last.

(picture stolen from Watertiger at Dependable Renegade)

The back of George Bush.

What a difference a day makes

Compare and contrast. It can't be said any better than this.

The accounting begins.

The top 43 that corrupted the Bush administration beyond repair.



And those who stood up against the Bush cabal when it was very hard to do so. Thank you.

Bush is counting on an historical perspective

To show he's done a good job:

Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) -- George W. Bush ran for president in 2000 promising Americans peace and prosperity. He delivered neither.

The 43rd president, who gives his farewell speech to the nation tonight from the East Room of the White House, leaves behind a legacy that includes the weakest job-creation performance since Herbert Hoover’s presidency and the longest U.S. wars since Richard Nixon was in office.

The country is grappling with its deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression, a yearlong recession, soaring budget deficits, and conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its standing in the world has fallen, with polls showing most nations view America less favorably than they did in 2001.

“From the perspective of the present moment, it is pretty hard to regard this as anything but a failed presidency,” said historian David Kennedy of Stanford University in California.

With the Bush minions eyeing January 20th as the time they can spill the beans to Seymour Hersh, and people pretending they've known all along that Bush wasn't a true Republican, I don't think Cheney can shred documents fast enough to silence the truth. We will still be discovering new horrors about the actions the Bush administration did a decade from now.

So, time may heal all wounds, Georgie, but it also exposes all the lies. Trying to cloud things by spewing nonsense may have gotten you a passing grade in college, but it won't work here. Your presidency was an unmitigated disaster and we won't forget.

Ever.



Update: If you read only one thing today, read Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post. Here's a bit:

President Bush famously asserts that history's verdict on his presidency won't come until he's long dead. But far from waiting until his corpse is cold, the verdict is largely in before he's even left the building.

Some things just aren't gonna change, no matter how much time passes. Here is Bush's legacy, in part:

He took the nation to a war of choice under false pretenses -- and left troops in harm's way on two fields of battle. He embraced torture as an interrogation tactic and turned the world's champion of human dignity into an outlaw nation and international pariah. He watched with detachment as a major American city went under water. He was ostensibly at the helm as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression took hold. He went from being the most popular to the most disappointing president, having squandered a unique opportunity to unite the country and even the world behind a shared agenda after Sept. 11. He set a new precedent for avoiding the general public in favor of screened audiences and seemed to occupy an alternate reality. He took his own political party from seeming permanent majority status to where it is today. And he deliberately politicized the federal government, circumvented the traditional policymaking process, ignored expert advice and suppressed dissent, leaving behind a broken government.

The truth smarts, doesn't it, Georgie?

I'm glad he's 'comfortable with that'

Because history will not be kind to his legacy.

I'd like to send him off with a picture or two to describe how we feel about him, but I can't decide which pic describes Bush's eight year reign the best.

1] This one gets to the essence of intelligence:



2] This one covers the missed opportunities:



3] Katrina:



4] How unfair current events are:



5] Heckovajob, Georgie?



6] All eight years?



7] Economictricalicityness?



8] Shop 'til you drop?



9] Rubs?



10] Iraq, the vanity war of choice?



11] Brains?



12] Selected not elected?



13] Failing upwards?



14] Leadership?



15] Actual quote?



16] Never forget?



17] Check in the back of his sock drawer?



18] Warrantless blackmail?



19] My classic?:



Update 1/13: an invitation to share what Bush's legacy will be.

Speaking truth to power

Update: Chet Scoville of Vanity Press quotes Frank Rich's NYT article.

Bush's last year in office

Think Progress has the numbers:

– Number Of U.S. Troops Killed in Iraq: 322.
– Number Of U.S. Troops Killed in Afghanistan: 151.
– Number Of Jobs Lost: 1.9 million.
– Number Of Banks Federal Government Now Owns Stock In: 206.
– Number Of Uninsured Americans: 47.5 million.

– Change In Housing Prices: declined 18 percent.
– Change In Health Insurance Premiums: increased 5 percent.
– Change In Number Of Delinquent Mortgages: increased 75 percent.
– Change In Use Of Food Stamps: increased 17 percent.
– Change In Dow Jones Industrial Average: declined 35 percent.
– Change In Bush Approval Rating: declined 9 percent to 29 percent.

Heckovajob, Georgie!!

19 more days

Update: another viewpoint

Is George Bush a war criminal?

Yes.

How Bush sees himself

And how the world sees him...



Bush as war hero:



As the world sees him:



Bush sees grateful Iraqi people:



As the world sees him:



It's hard making your own reality...

A Bush Christmas

'If they would rather die,' said Scrooge, 'they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.

Dignity in office?

Let me stop laughing a sec...

You wish

Ain't gonna happen.