He came into office with the lightest resume and some of the most meager accomplishments of any President EVER. He’s never known a moment’s adversity, because either his Daddy or his well-heeled and well-connected friends helped him out of every problem he’s ever had. His fortune wasn’t earned as much as it was enabled by family and friends. He was, to quote the late Ann Richards, “born with a silver foot in his mouth”. He was, to be charitable, a thoroughly average and undistinguished student at Yale. And yet Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader somehow managed to scrape together the intellectual (if not the moral) wherewithal to steal himself an election (perhaps even two). I suppose that sort of thing can happen when you surround yourself with advisers even more craven and amoral than yourself, eh?
So what’s a President who couldn’t spell “leader” if you spotted him the “l”, “e”, “d”, and “r” to do for a legacy? Well, former Monty Python stalwart Terry Jones has an idea. It’s not much, and it’s not the sort of legacy that most Presidents aspire to, but in the case of Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader…well, he’s going to pretty much have to take what he can get.
The World League of Despots? Well, when you’re almost single-handedly responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans, Iraqis, and Afghans in a pointless, immoral war, it seems a fitting legacy, no?
Dear President Bush,
I write to you in my capacity as secretary of the World League of Despots.
It is with great pleasure that I am finally able to extend an official invitation to you to join our ranks. For many years, we have watched your efforts to fulfil the requirements necessary to join our number. From the start, we were greatly impressed by your disdain for democratic principles - the way you wrested power from the democratically elected candidate in the 2000 election, and again in 2005 when you managed to swing what was clearly going to be a victory for your opponent.
Contempt for human life has always been a priority requirement for membership of the league, and I and my fellow adjudicators were well aware of your record as governor of Texas when you quadrupled the number of state executions. But your record since seizing power has surpassed even our expectations. The thousands of innocent people in Iraq, who have died so that you could fulfil your declared political objective of establishing “an American force presence in the Middle East”, attest to your eligibility to join our ranks….
Of course, your unstinting efforts to make torture an internationally accepted aspect of human life have surpassed everything we could have ever hoped for. I don’t think there is a single member of the league who could have imagined, six short years ago, that our activities in tormenting our fellow creatures would once again be recognised as acceptable, civilised behaviour, as it once was in the middle ages.
Despite these achievements, we had, until now, felt unable to extend our invitation to you because you had been unable to fulfil one of our basic requirements: the ability to carry out arbitrary arrests, imprisonment without trial, secret torture and executions at will.
We approved of your attempts to establish the principles of arbitrary arrest under the Homeland Security Act of 2002, but unfortunately it was still restricted to terror suspects. We appreciate that you were hampered by the US constitution, but the restrictions this imposed on your arbitrary powers kept you below the threshold requirements for qualification as a despot.
Now, however, all that has changed. At the end of last month you persuaded the Senate to pass a bill regarding the treatment of detainees. Illegally obtained evidence can now be used against suspects, even if it has been gathered abroad under torture. Anyone you care to accuse can be thrown into prison without the right to a trial or the right to represent themselves.
Yes, if you can’t be known as a visionary, a leader. or even someone who left the Presidency and the country better than he found it, why not be known as a murdering, self-absorbed despot? If you can’t be remembered for doing anything positive, why not for the indiscriminate and pointless deaths of thousands? Why not for the craven kowtowing to Evangelical Social Conservatives? Why not for the anti-family, pro-business legislation you’ve allowed lobbyists to write time and time again? Why not for creating your very own terrorist threat in Iraq when you could have fought real, live, already-in-place terrorists in Afghanistan? Why not for denying the undeniable potential of stem-cell research?
Why not, indeed? The World League of Despots will be both a fitting and appropriate legacy for Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader. It’s just too bad that 54,000,000+ Americans were so stupid and undemanding as to grant this walking, talking embodiment of all things mediocre, corrupt, and inept a second term in office. Perhaps they could be made honorary members of the World League of Despots?
WE DESERVE BETTER.
