Bush: The Legacy

The legacy tour continues, as Bush, Cheney and their minions attempt to manipulate memories and reality. "It all went well, really. History will vindicate us, you'll see." Bush even claimed in his press conference that the response to Katrina was "pretty good." Delusion or lie.

A complete litany of the failures of the Bush Administration is too long to begin. Even the list of major debacles has grown so long that it becomes impossible to recite them without leaving out something obvious. The threats to our rights, and the acts of utter disregard for the Constitution and our ideals, are surely even more numerous.

The legacy of the Bush Presidency though, can be summed up by the intersection of a number of the various domains of failure perfected by this thoroughly incompetent administration. To begin, in the final week of his presidency, Osama bin Laden releases another audiotape, continuing to taunt Bush. The hunt for bin Laden, marked by all the swagger and hubris we have come to expect from the Decider, serves as a symbol of the utter incompetence of this administration.

The inability to capture bin Laden was accompanied, over the years, by an ever frantic effort to ramp up fears of future attacks, and to justify all manner of acts antithetical to the professed ideals of this country. Torture was justified and denied at the same time. The moral authority of the nation was destroyed here and abroad.

Now that Judge Susan J. Crawford, who oversees the military trials at Guantanamo, has stated unequivocally that torture has occurred at that facility, the legacy tour will continue to point out there have been no attacks since 9/11. Forget that 9/11 occurred on their watch and the anthrax attacks occurred soon after. Know that the torture at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib ended serving more as a recruitment tool for al-Qaeda than it made anyone safe.

Finally though, the legacy of the Bush Administration can be seen in the complete lack of regard for which America is now seen in the world community. Rather than making the world or America safer, he has inflamed the very soul of the world. His eight years of dogmatic, ideological imperialism have confirmed the worst suspicions about America for its detractors. His incompetence has compounded the multitude of errors. Here we are, more than seven years after 9/11 and he still hasn't caught a six feet, five inch guy on dialysis who is one of the most recognizable figures in the world.

Bush's narrow minded view of the world fostered an "us vs. them" mentality that ultimately made us all less safe. He had furthered the likelihood of violence and confrontation in the world. A strong case can be made that the current actions in the Gaza Strip are occurring precisely because Bush is about to leave office. And remember, he was going to bring peace to the Middle East.

Incompetence. Torture. World Stature Destroyed. Quite a legacy. Oh, and I forgot the economy.