You sympathize with that snot-nosed, lazy ass, spoiled little rich kid in the White House who never thought being president required him to actually do any real work? F**k George Bush. He will have the legacy he so richly deserves - worst president in history.

Not only are Americans paying a price.
So are people in Afghanistan and Iraq.
So are people in Israel, in Palestine, all over Europe, and virtually in the rest of the world.

Maybe it's time to brush off Bush's claimed qualities as a uniter (remember?) and start looking forward on the issue of Climate Change???

What will be interesting to watch is how
Bush deals with the neo-Cons who are bailing out on him, the traditional libertarain conserviatives like George Will or even Bill Buckley and the evangelical Christians. Each group sees the world very differently and wants different things. The only things that held them together was lower taxes and a reverance for Ronald Reagan. Bush's success help overcome the differences. Now he is going to have more trouble with them than virtually any Democrats.

The elected Democrats are going to move the Party toward the middle. That should make it even harder for Bush.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Well, you feel bad for George W. Bush and I don't. Lieing warmongers who get their comeuppance don't elicit a lot of sympathy from me.

Tom

George W. Bush dug his own hole, and then “stayed the course” long after most rational people would stop digging. 9/11 and Katrina gave him a truly historic American moment, and he chose to stoke conservative fantasies rather than lead the country through the hard choices that historic moments demand. He could have started a Manhattan project to wean America off of foreign oil, or perhaps mobilized military resources to save a drowning American city with the same vigor as he wages a preemptive and fruitless war.

I said to myself on September 11th 2001, “Well, Mr. Bush, I didn’t vote for you, but you are our President.”—and I was ready to follow his lead. Alas he and his cabal were more concerned with the Republican Permanent Majority™ than he was with the welfare of the people who pay his salary. I only wish that we had a better man in office through the years of the Bush II Presidency.

This once, anyway, I agree with MR. I get no joy from the humiliation of others -- even those who get joy from humiliating me.

His entire life, 'W' has been a loser. A mediocre student in university, an incompetent businessman, a drunk who could never quite admit that he was one -- a view of his life has that impact of a couple's angry, bitter outburst in a grocery store. You feel embarrassed and sorry for them. And irritated that they didn't save it for later.

"Bush lied, soldiers died." Yes, he did and yes, they did. For that he must be accountable, not only to us and to history, but to his Maker.

I sometimes wonder what he feels, "at night, alone, when the demons come." I think he is capable of feeling his own inadequacy. I think he is well-reflected in this line from Maugham: "Like all men of weak character, he laid exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind." I'm glad I am not him.

We all have our own demons. We should not pick up the stones.

Thanks.

mp

If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.
-- Louis Armstrong

good point.
but how did the neocons capture the gop?

=== As someone who worked for politicians for decades, I can tell you about the stinging tears in the eyes when you think that you hurt your own boss, the guy who brung you to the dance. ===

People who worked for Clinton, absolutely. People who worked for, say, Eisenhower? Probably.

I doubt very much anyone who works for George W. Bush ever feels this way. He was intended to be a figurehead, and "his people" treat him that way.

sPh

No doubt about it Bush needs strokes and he gets them from Laura, Harriet and Karen. (He certainly never got them from his mother.) With his line-up of enablers, he's pretty free to screw up and never have to pay the consequences or even feel he should pay the consequences.

When the neocons etc. suggested a war with Iraq, Georgie jumped at it. By getting Saddam he'd do what daddy had failed to do and been highly criticized for. George I was good at everything while George II was bad at everything, something that has plagued Bush all of his life, and here was his chance to outshine his father.

To Bush, the war was just a means to get Saddam. At this point, having gotten Saddam I would guess Bush is quite pleased with himself and if people would just leave alone, something those pesky Dems probably won't do for the next two years, he could sleep like a baby.

He could have started a Manhattan project to wean America off of foreign oil, or perhaps mobilized military resources to save a drowning American city ....

Excellent. A rarely recognized point is what Bush could have done as President.   And when I say "could of" I mean what would have made sense within his principles (let alone all the "could ofs" that I and others of a different political persuasion would have suggested).

A President has such power to set the national agenda that we forget to analyze initiatives and policies he never pursued. In financial terms the opportunity cost is huge.

I sympathize only in the sense that I cannot imagine what it feels like to be betrayed by his friends.

I don't.

I know what it feels like as a citizen to be betrayed by the President of our country. To have a President who rebels and defys the very principles the country was founded on. An individual who uses our US Supreme Court to declare him the President.  Who shouts that we are unpatriotic when  citizens object to his ludicrous notions of war and strips us of our rights as citizens by enacting the 'The Patriot Act'. A President who abandoned citizens in need during Katrina while declaring 'job well done Brownie"  I know what it feels like to live in fear, to have my privacy invaded with wiretaps, and my email scrutinized,  everytime the treasonous face of the President of my country comes on TV to announce more threats to our civil liberties while declaring patriotic citizens terrorists because they belong to the opposing party.  I do not have to imagine these things or the depth of such betrayal because I have lived it for the past eight years.

Piss on Bush!

Sorry M.J., not that I'm ideological on this, its just that I can't find any sympathy for a person who WILL NOT apologize for his misdeeds.

-Dave Adams-

=== Bush is merely in damage control mode. ===

That may be so, but Rove is in a fight for his life (possibly literally; I can imagine at least one 2008 Repub candidate who would send Rove to Gitmo given a heartbeat of a chance). He is going to be fighting like a cornered Death Eater [1].

sPh

[1] I was going to say "skunk" but realized that was unfair to skunks.

Let the President make a complete accounting of everything he did wrong and put forth a plan to recify it before he can expect sympathy.

It is not a matter of expectations. It is a matter of doing what is right. And what is right, moral, just is for us to not act like he would act were we the ones who got routed.

Thanks.

mp

If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.
-- Louis Armstrong

Well stated whiterosebuddy!  Feeling anything except contempt and disgust with Bush is beyond my abilities.  This has been a terrible time for our country, a time that we can only hope and pray will never be experienced by our children and grandchildren.

I wouldn't join the very long line waiting to  do as you suggested, but I would certainly do all that I can do to assist the international war crimes tribunals in bringing him to justice.

Hoppy in Sacramento

Thanks. That makes it clearer. That just leaves one question: How in the world did George W get to be president, and how did he accomplish so much of his pathetic plans? I mean, yes, he is the worst president ever, but he got pretty much everything he wanted, including unprecedented power for the executive branch!

How could someone so marginal do it? It will keep historians (and psychologists) felling trees for their books for decades!

Jan Knaus

Did you ever see "The Manchurian Candidate" with Lawrence Harvey? If not, rent it.

Bush thought reading "My Pet Goat" was as tough as it was going to get.

Tom

I, too, feel bad for Bush. (really)

(Nah, not really)

Before you fall into too deep of a depression, watch what he does next. He’s going to continue screwing up the country for his own bent ideology, the profit of the corporate elite and to try to resuscitate some (fake) positive legacy. Instead, let’s feel sorry for the multitudes that have been crushed by this poor little man that we put in charge of the free world.

Feel sorry for those innocent people he “rendered” to Egypt or Syria or some secret prison to be tortured (to death in some cases). Feel sorry for the working poor who by all counts have slid back towards that pre-reform age of wage slaves. How about the kids added to the poverty rolls. What about college students who are just a little bit afraid to broach touchy subjects and think for themselves, or the non-violent activist groups being watched and infiltrated by the FBI. And then there are the grandmothers and grandfathers that are still choosing between filling their prescriptions and eating so that Phizer stockholders can reap a few more bucks.

Feel sorry for every group from gays to the terminally ill who want to die with dignity to illegal immigrants that have been denigrated for the sake of the politics of bigotry. Feel sorry for us before you feel sorry for George W. Bush.

I doubt he'll be assassinated because his existence doesn't threaten any robber-barons.

Who do I suspect? Certainly not pere or mere Bush - although Babs does bear an uncanny resemblance to Ma Barker. It's interesting and perhaps a clue that Jeb was always the Bush in line to head the cast, and almost all of a sudden it's George, the screw-up Bush, the guy with a closet full of skeletons.

With Rove in the catbird seat nothing can be eliminated as too impossible or too improbable. Hell, maybe they needed Jeb in Florida to put George in the WH, whereas George in Texas couldn't guarantee Jeb in the WH. Who knows, but it does make for an interesting thought experiment.

MP:

"It is not a matter of expectations. It is a matter of doing what is right. And what is right, moral, just is for us to not act like he would act were we the ones who got routed."

For me, doing what is right requires finding out exactly what was done wrong. This isn't about retribution, its about making sure that abuses don't take place the next time someone with an authoritarian bent gets into the White House. We need to make it clear that they won't get away with it.

Lets be frank about it- this will happen again. But the tougher we are on the perpetrators today, the longer it will be before they try it again.

-Dave Adams-

Dan K,

I also think the neocons were successful in showing Republicans how they could peel away a few layers of hardline Jewish voters from the Democrats by adopting a Likud-like Israel policy, without losing other constituencies.

How powerful are we supposed to believe "hardline Jewish voters" really are anyway?

Well, now the Dems have the Senate too. And the best thing about this is that Dead-Eye Dick will have to sit there and watch the Dems ram legislation through. He may even have to watch his buddies at Haliburton do the purp walk. All I can do is echo his immortal words, "Go F**k yourself Dick!!!"

The "greatest country in the world" did not elect him President. Katherine Harris's bogus setup in Florida and 5 Supreme Court Justices who betrayed the 14th Amendment made him president.

Tom

RocketEngineer,

All I can do is echo his immortal words, "Go F**k yourself Dick!!!"

The deliciously sweet irony is that the Senator to whom Cheney leveled his vulgar command, Patrick Leahy, is now set to head the Senate Judiciary Committee.

I agree with you. There needs to be a strong deterrent set. I truly believe our forefathers would have hung them from the capitol rotunda. (I know it didn't exist then, but you get the idea, I hope)

I'm actually againstt capitol punishment, but they weren't. Maybe put them in cages labeled "TRAITORS TO AMERICA" in the Capitol Rotundra?

CSPAN junkies visit http://spannerbackup.ipbhost.com

Although I'm convinced a war crime tribunal would be not only appropriate but one of the best things for America that can be imagined (and for America's standing in the democratic world), it must not be forgotten that there must be a day after too.

America suffers from too much polarization and too little national sense already.

Victimizing the GWB-administration, their enablers and their supporters, would be risky and have little value if not the American nation at large changed its supremacist above-the-law and better-than-others attitudes.