Farewell to Bush

Worst. President. Ever.

Dear Mr. President,

May you fade quickly into oblivion, while our country strives to undo the damage you have wrought. I hope that you will find some meaningful work to occupy you doing your retirement--something better suited to your abilities than pretending to be the leader of the free world. Perhaps you could buy another baseball team, or devote some time to community service in a place like New Orleans.

You have proven that people can rise to their level of incompetence--so that is one distinction you can look back on. You have shown that America offers promise and opportunity to the most mediocre among us. You have proven that any idiot can be elected President.

Your departure from the White House will gladen the hearts of the majority of Americans. No doubt you will see this joy as a testimony to your presidency. If that delusion comforts you, hold fast to it, and keep it in your heart right next to your belief that invading Iraq was a good idea, and that deregulation is good for the economy. At this point, there is no need for you to finally face dealing with reality.

I wish you well, Mr. President. I have only one final request--please, PLEASE, PLEASE do not continue to do more damage before you leave office in January. Keep a low profile, and just start packing.

Sincerely.

A citizen who is very happy and relieved to know we will not have to suffer with you much longer

One last thought:



Excellent, now we all know what the height of stupidity is.

two more words that, since the election is over, must be discarded


SEACHANGE.

SEISMIC SHIFT.

Each of them have real meanings other than that pop politico newspeak.

Good riddance. Please don't come back to Texas.

The Bush Administration: "The most incompetent and corrupt administration in US history". Good Riddance.

also we have an answer to the age old question "How high will **** stack?"

It is telling that in the midst of far less A2K jubulation than I expected we have yet another cheap shot at Bush.

Good way to start off the process of unification your guy promotes.

By the way - He was leaving anyway (despite all the desperate warnings of crazed left-wingers over the last eight years) no matter who won last night, and he won't be out of office until January 2009.

You'll still get a chance to send him off, and he'll still have a little more than 2 months to infuriate you.

Great, plenty of time for him and Dick Cheney to be dragged out of there in handcuffs to face justice.

..or Karl. Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!

Only if you want CW-II to start immediately...

Dear President Bush.

I think it's time you started boozing again.

The Treatment of Bush Has Been a Disgrace
What must our enemies be thinking?
By JEFFREY SCOTT

Earlier this year, 12,000 people in San Francisco signed a petition in support of a proposition on a local ballot to rename an Oceanside sewage plant after George W. Bush. The proposition is only one example of the classless disrespect many Americans have shown the president.

APAccording to recent Gallup polls, the president's average approval rating is below 30% -- down from his 90% approval in the wake of 9/11. Mr. Bush has endured relentless attacks from the left while facing abandonment from the right.

This is the price Mr. Bush is paying for trying to work with both Democrats and Republicans. During his 2004 victory speech, the president reached out to voters who supported his opponent, John Kerry, and said, "Today, I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent. To make this nation stronger and better, I will need your support, and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust."

Those bipartisan efforts have been met with crushing resistance from both political parties.

The president's original Supreme Court choice of Harriet Miers alarmed Republicans, while his final nomination of Samuel Alito angered Democrats. His solutions to reform the immigration system alienated traditional conservatives, while his refusal to retreat in Iraq has enraged liberals who have unrealistic expectations about the challenges we face there.

It seems that no matter what Mr. Bush does, he is blamed for everything. He remains despised by the left while continuously disappointing the right.
Yet it should seem obvious that many of our country's current problems either existed long before Mr. Bush ever came to office, or are beyond his control. Perhaps if Americans stopped being so divisive, and congressional leaders came together to work with the president on some of these problems, he would actually have had a fighting chance of solving them.

Like the president said in his 2004 victory speech, "We have one country, one Constitution and one future that binds us. And when we come together and work together, there is no limit to the greatness of America."

To be sure, Mr. Bush is not completely alone. His low approval ratings put him in the good company of former Democratic President Harry S. Truman, whose own approval rating sank to 22% shortly before he left office. Despite Mr. Truman's low numbers, a 2005 Wall Street Journal poll found that he was ranked the seventh most popular president in history.

Just as Americans have gained perspective on how challenging Truman's presidency was in the wake of World War II, our country will recognize the hardship President Bush faced these past eight years -- and how extraordinary it was that he accomplished what he did in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems. He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.

Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty -- a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House.

Mr. Shapiro is an investigative reporter and lawyer who previously interned with John F. Kerry's legal team during the presidential election in 2004.

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122584386627599251.html?mod=djemWMP

An idiotic piece; one which pretends that Bush's failures have nothing to do with his disapproval at all.

This is the worst line -



No, he did not work to earn it. He did nothing to earn the trust and support of those who voted against him. The Republicans in Congress did nothing to earn the trust and support. Now your party is paying the price for their failure to do so.

Cycloptichorn

This line from your post pretty much sums up W for me...

"a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House."

RH

Bush wasn't nearly as bad as the liberal media said he was.

He happens to like Obama and unlike the Clinton's, W and the 1st lady are
doing everything possible to make the transition of power go smooth and fast.

History will treat GWB better than you can imagine.

We've got some plumbing here. This plumbs the depths of self-delusion.

My imagination isn't that great!

He's not leaving fast enough!

The New York Times
November 4, 2008
Editorial

So Little Time, So Much Damage

While Americans eagerly vote for the next president, here’s a sobering reminder: As of Tuesday, George W. Bush still has 77 days left in the White House " and he’s not wasting a minute.

President Bush’s aides have been scrambling to change rules and regulations on the environment, civil liberties and abortion rights, among others " few for the good. Most presidents put on a last-minute policy stamp, but in Mr. Bush’s case it is more like a wrecking ball. We fear it could take months, or years, for the next president to identify and then undo all of the damage.

Here is a look " by no means comprehensive " at some of Mr. Bush’s recent parting gifts and those we fear are yet to come.

CIVIL LIBERTIES

We don’t know all of the ways that the administration has violated Americans’ rights in the name of fighting terrorism. Last month, Attorney General Michael Mukasey rushed out new guidelines for the F.B.I. that permit agents to use chillingly intrusive techniques to collect information on Americans even where there is no evidence of wrongdoing.

Agents will be allowed to use informants to infiltrate lawful groups, engage in prolonged physical surveillance and lie about their identity while questioning a subject’s neighbors, relatives, co-workers and friends. The changes also give the F.B.I. " which has a long history of spying on civil rights groups and others " expanded latitude to use these techniques on people identified by racial, ethnic and religious background.

The administration showed further disdain for Americans’ privacy rights and for Congress’s power by making clear that it will ignore a provision in the legislation that established the Department of Homeland Security. The law requires the department’s privacy officer to account annually for any activity that could affect Americans’ privacy " and clearly stipulates that the report cannot be edited by any other officials at the department or the White House.

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has now released a memo asserting that the law “does not prohibit” officials from homeland security or the White House from reviewing the report. The memo then argues that since the law allows the officials to review the report, it would be unconstitutional to stop them from changing it. George Orwell couldn’t have done better.

THE ENVIRONMENT

The administration has been especially busy weakening regulations that promote clean air and clean water and protect endangered species.

Mr. Bush, or more to the point, Vice President Dick Cheney, came to office determined to dismantle Bill Clinton’s environmental legacy, undo decades of environmental law and keep their friends in industry happy. They have had less success than we feared, but only because of the determined opposition of environmental groups, courageous members of Congress and protests from citizens. But the White House keeps trying.

Mr. Bush’s secretary of the interior, Dirk Kempthorne, has recently carved out significant exceptions to regulations requiring expert scientific review of any federal project that might harm endangered or threatened species (one consequence will be to relieve the agency of the need to assess the impact of global warming on at-risk species). The department also is rushing to remove the gray wolf from the endangered species list " again. The wolves were re-listed after a federal judge ruled the government had not lived up to its own recovery plan.

In coming weeks, we expect the Environmental Protection Agency to issue a final rule that would weaken a program created by the Clean Air Act, which requires utilities to install modern pollution controls when they upgrade their plants to produce more power. The agency is also expected to issue a final rule that would make it easier for coal-fired power plants to locate near national parks in defiance of longstanding Congressional mandates to protect air quality in areas of special natural or recreational value.

Interior also is awaiting E.P.A.’s concurrence on a proposal that would make it easier for mining companies to dump toxic mine wastes in valleys and streams.

And while no rules changes are at issue, the interior department also has been rushing to open up millions of acres of pristine federal land to oil and gas exploration. We fear that, in coming weeks, Mr. Kempthorne will open up even more acreage to the commercial development of oil shale, a hugely expensive and environmentally risky process that even the oil companies seem in no hurry to begin. He should not.

ABORTION RIGHTS

Soon after the election, Michael Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, is expected to issue new regulations aimed at further limiting women’s access to abortion, contraceptives and information about their reproductive health care options.

Existing law allows doctors and nurses to refuse to participate in an abortion. These changes would extend the so-called right to refuse to a wide range of health care workers and activities including abortion referrals, unbiased counseling and provision of birth control pills or emergency contraception, even for rape victims.

The administration has taken other disturbing steps in recent weeks. In late September, the I.R.S. restored tax breaks for banks that take big losses on bad loans inherited through acquisitions. Now we learn that JPMorgan Chase and others are planning to use their bailout funds for mergers and acquisitions, transactions that will be greatly enhanced by the new tax subsidy.

One last-minute change Mr. Bush won’t be making: He apparently has decided not to shut down the prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba " the most shameful symbol of his administration’s disdain for the rule of law.

Mr. Bush has said it should be closed, and his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and his secretary of defense, Robert Gates, pushed for it. Proposals were prepared, including a plan for sending the real bad guys to other countries for trial. But Mr. Cheney objected, and the president has refused even to review the memos. He will hand this mess off to his successor.

We suppose there is some good news in all of this. While Mr. Bush leaves office on Jan. 20, 2009, he has only until Nov. 20 to issue “economically significant” rule changes and until Dec. 20 to issue other changes. Anything after that is merely a draft and can be easily withdrawn by the next president.

Unfortunately, the White House is well aware of those deadlines.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/opinion/04tue1.html?em