The End is Nigh Watch

Part wev in an ongoing series starting here, waiting and longing for the day at long last when the Bush administration will be finally fucking over.

My pal Brad Reed's got a great piece at AlterNet listing "The 10 Most Awesomely Bad Moments of the Bush Presidency." While you may disagree with his Top 10—chosen by "rat[ing] each Bush disaster by two main criteria: its body count and its damage to the country's reputation"—you'll no doubt agree these are nonetheless ten pretty spectacular moments in Bushfuckery.

8: North Korea Conducts a Nuclear Test

In his 2002 State of the Union Address, Bush stated forthrightly that "the United States will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons." And to show how serious he was, Bush decided to invade Iraq, a country whose vast stockpile contained precisely zero weapons of mass destruction.

But while Bush was busy freedomizing the Iraqis, North Korea -- a country best known for being home of the world's worst government -- steadily built up its nuclear capabilities and eventually conducted a nuclear test in October 2006.

Oopsie-doodles!

Meanwhile, in today's Boston Globe, Andrew Bacevich (who knows firsthand the intimate pain of the Bush administration's policies) depressingly details "What Bush Hath Wrought," reminding us that "in crucial respects, the Bush era will not end Jan. 20, 2009. The administration's many failures, especially those related to Iraq, mask a considerable legacy."

After listing some of the highlights, such as they are, of that legacy (e.g. "Enhanced the prerogatives of the imperial presidency on all matters pertaining to national security, effectively eviscerating the system of checks and balances," which I almost can't believe can be reduced to such a neat, matter-of-fact bulletpoint without the entire nation gnashing its teeth at the sheer horror of its rocked foundation being presented so compactly), Bacevich then writes, simply: "By almost any measure, this constitutes a record of substantial, if almost entirely malignant, achievement."

And so it is. The end of the Bush regime is nigh, but the reverberations of its malignant imprint on America have only just begun.

Have a nice day!