The final report card for George W. Bush won't be in the mail for another few years. (Nixon's is still being revised -- and, for that matter, Lincoln's.) But with just a few weeks to go before the 43rd president moves back to Texas, it's not too early to measure the impact of his policies across American life. Bush campaigned on a promise of smaller government, a pledge he kept only in part. He stripped staff members and resources from areas like environmental, health and corporate regulatory enforcement. But the extended wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the worst financial crisis in decades swelled the national debt to its highest level in absolute terms, and its highest since the 1950s relative to GDP.
This will, with any luck, be the last thing I EVER write about Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader ©. Given that he's essentially checked out and descended into ever-greater degrees of irrelevance, what more is there to say about a man who can with no tracy of irony be described as The Worst President EVER ©? While it may be far too early to write a definitive history of the Bush Clusterf--k Era, it's not too early to begin looking at the numbers. Yes, it may be a case of "lies, damn lies, and statistics", but the numbers in this case do set the outline of this story...and it ain't a pretty picture.
Right now, there's far too much emotion involved to objectively evaluate the Reign of Error ©, but from where I sit, the number definitely tell a story- of a President who just didn't give a damn about Americans. Main Street, the environment, the rule of law, America's standing in the world- they all took a beating under this sorry excuse for a President. I can't control what the history books say about The Decider ©, but I do know what I think about his eight miserable year of overpromising and underdelivering. Frankly, the man really ought to go straight from the Oval Office to a federal penitentiary. I'll bet he'd be stunning in an orange prison jumpsuit and a set of handcuffs....
Congratulations, America. I do hope you're proud of yourself.
