So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu

Posted by Andrew Adams on January 21, 2009
Filed Under Politics, United States |

Well, it’s been eight years since I sat there avidly watching the voting numbers for Florida updating as the recounts came in, and despaired as they fell agonisingly short of wiping out George Bush’s majority in the state. And despaired again as the conservatives in the Supreme Court disgracefully stopped further recounts and handed him the presidency. It’s four years since I despaired yet again as John Kerry’s challenge faltered, not least becasue of the lies spread about his military record. But now “Dubya” has finally gone.

He will above all, of course, be remembered for the Invasion of Iraq - both for the lies told in advance and the horrendous bungling of the post-invasion situation. The wholly inadequate reponse to Hurricane Katrina was also significant, not just for impact on its victims but because I think this was the point when the American people finally lost all faith in him.

There’s plenty more of course - ordinary Americans saw wages stagnate and unemployment rise while the richest got large tax cuts, and that’s before the economy came close to collapsing altogether. Those same ordinary Americans also saw their health care costs escalate while their coverage fell, there a many millions more without any insurance and the system is still captured by the insurance companies. They can console themselves that his absurd attempt to privatise social security failed. Then there were the illegal wiretaps and the refusal to recognise the reality of climate change, let alone take any meaningful action.

There are so many other examples, but a special mention though should go to the obscenity of Guantanamo Bay and Abu Graib, the tearing up of the Geneva Convention and his sanctioning of the use of torture, either directly or by proxy. Thus he fundamentaly undermined America’s claim to any kind of moral authority and fatally diminished its standing in the world.

So farewell then George Bush, and also your cronies Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld et all. Your venality, dishonesty, incompetence, belligerence and naked self-interest diminished both yourself and the office of President of the United States of America. You will not be missed.

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