I admit, I liked Rumsfeld's tv personality too. Trust me, I hate the guy for ruining America and causing us to torture people. But brazen quotes like "There are known knowns. ... There are known unknowns. ... But there are also unknown unknowns." That's brilliant. And totally crazy.

I'll add one;

8--- I'll miss all the trees that will have to be cut down to make all the paper for the subpoenas and indictments if there is a "surge" of investigations by the new administration into the machinations of the Bush gang.

All this reminds me of Roy Clark's old song: "Thank God and Greyhound...."

I will miss the commercials on my favorite radio station that has a voice impersonator ask the 'constitchants' to buy a car from a local dealer to 'stimifacate' the 'conamee'.

I can't claim the phrase, but someone used the term "moral clarity" to describe Bush and I agree. It's what I will miss most about him. People viewed his "right or wrong" attitude as too simplistic but hopefully years from now people will appreciate it more. It came from Reagan who said "tear down the wall", not to put a gate in it or take down a couple bricks. I hope Obama appreciates this perspective. But I'm afraid we're just going to get a lot of rhetoric

We have not been attacked since 9/11, Libya no longer has nuclear weapons, Syria was stopped from acquiring them and Iraq is on its way to being a nation that fights terrorism.

I will miss the shoe thrower discussion. The reason he actually has the freedom to throw a shoe at Bush is because the US has liberated Iraq. But alot of people don't want to recognize this (or simply appreciate it)

I will miss (gladly) the endless fount of poetic inspiration that pundits like David Brooks provided each time they attended one of those neoconservative-only seances with Deputy Dubya in the White House, only to emerge babbling about the "confidence" they had subliminally imbibed each time the dwarf-dyslexic chimpanzee would "crouch and swallow up the room" or "spread his arms wide to illustrate the breadth of his ideas." Oh, brother. Or, like when Dubya performed that aircraft-carrier-landing stunt which induced the Washington Post's David Broder to lapse into a senile swoon, raving: "This president has just learned to move in ways that inspire confidence!" Oh, shit. He "moved" on you, did he? Hence:

"Boobie Preternatural Semi-Eroticism"

A gaggle of his sycophant
Stenographers convened
To quiver in his presence like
Some puppies never weaned
From off their mother’s suckling tit
Thus Dubya them demeaned

According to one David Brooks,
Dim Dubya spread his arms
To indicate “ideas” that
Had “breadth” among their charms
Which kept those in his audience
From sounding the alarms

The Boobie David Brooks, you see,
Disdains the thinking mind
And much prefers the glandular
Secretions of his kind
Whose little woodies stiffen when
George shows them his behind

Like David Broder gushing at
The flight-suit caper which
Once made him feel so “confident”
With each new pose and twitch
That “Top-Gun” George performed for him
With just one glaring hitch:

It seemed a little premature
To claim we had “prevailed”
When all the evidence to date
Had shown we’d clearly failed
And only rushed into a trap
In which we’ve flopped and flailed

Now over four long years have passed
Since Dubya did his dance
And senile David Broder swooned
Enraptured in a trance
Convinced that Dubya’s “movements” showed
A “learning” curve enhanced

Thus Boobies Brooks and Broder both
Seem prone to faint on cue
Whenever Dubya strikes a pose
Within their line of view
And glands into their boiling blood
Erotic hormones spew

Just like the Midnight Cowboy who
“Was formed in such a way”
To drive the women mad with lust
Till they would gladly lay
Upon their backs and part with cash
If Joe with them would play

Just so, George Bush the Younger wields
A power physical
Which neo-con Republicans
Find irresistible
When he invites them to his room
To wet their pants and drool

What Joe Buck was to women, George
Is to “conservatives”:
A loser whose grand schemes have use,
Like bowel laxatives:
He cures their constipation with
The tax-cuts that he gives

Korzybski named it long ago:
The hypothalamus
Which governs how the thoughtless live
Without a strain or fuss
When glands secrete a dreamy drug
Anaesthetizing us

Thus “body language” intervenes
When eyes cut out the brain
Appealing to the lizard that
Keeps hissing its refrain:
“Don’t mind that silly cortex ‘cause
Its thinking just brings pain.”

And so the Boobies huddle 'round
The light and heat of fire
As Dubya mimes a tale for them
About his new empire
Where advertisers specialize
In selling dumb desire

But Brooks and Broder and their ilk
Find written words a bore
At least when others use them
To elucidate the core
Of concepts Dubya can't convey
By playing cowboy whore

The midday Crawford cow-guy thus
Performs his manic act
While undisturbed by anything
Related to a fact
Content that both his Davids will
Supply what he has lacked

They like the way he “crouches” when
He “swallows up the room”
Projecting “leadership” to those
Who inhale his perfume
Neglecting to observe that he
Has “led” us to our doom

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2007

And sorry I brought up the whole shoe thing, but my point was that the reporter has the right to express himself without fear of death (unlike under Saddam). Freedom of the press did not exist under Saddam and things are better than that now.

As for being in jail - I didn't mean to imply with my post that it's "OK" to throw objects at a President.

Should he be beaten and tortured in jail? No, but let's let the Iraqi government figure this out

middleclassbill: don't let the TPMers get you down. "conscienceless fool" is tame compared to some of the things I was called during the election (I was a disgusting racist...in other words, I supported Hillary and not Obama).

the TPM crowd likes to think of itself as the smartest people in the room. they delight in making fun of anyone who doesn't share their way-left opinions. all you have to do to earn their scorn is stick up for Sarah Palin, suggest that Bush might have done one or two things right, believe that Israel has a right to defend itself, or disagree that Caroline Kennedy would make a swell senator.

I will miss nothing about George W. Bush. Good riddance to bad rubbish!!