Department of Valedictions: Lefty Bloggers Reflect on W

Did you know that Bush is still president?  It's true.  BUT NOT FOR VERY MUCH LONGER.

Bloggenfreude at Agitprop mourns W's passing.  "We will never see his like again."

As a lefty blogger, I will miss him. Sure he’s a dangerous sociopath, a pathological liar, and a national embarrassment.  But he’s also The Decider, The Commander Guy, and Commander Codpiece.  Think about that as January 20, 2009 approaches....

The photographic tributes are particularly choice.  We recommend clicking.

Meanwhile, Bush is STILL PRESIDENT, so where is he now? Cactus at Angry Bear asks why Bush needs a vacation RIGHT NOW.

I realize he doesn't have a boss and he's not accountable to anyone, but does he really need another vacation when he's leaving office in less than a month? Is presidenting poorly such a tough job?

The Rude Pundit says:

This has gotten ridiculous. With the new conflagration in Gaza, the Bush presidency has now become a parody of a failure....Peace of some sort in the Middle East has been one of those presidential yardsticks since at least Jimmy Carter, and the measure of our current Leader of the Free World, this demi-man, this Bush rests somewhere between blithe neglect and outright hostility to anything that stinks of "peace."....

Meanwhile, over here, this is another not-so-abstract example of just how fucked we've become as a nation, how impotent, how unimportant. We've only got three weeks left of this madness, of being led by these criminally arrogant and incompetent bastards. What the fuck else could happen? What the fuck else can? At this point, all bets are off on whether or not the nation can survive until January 20. Shit, we should just go around expecting another terrorist attack, a plague ravaging a city, a goddamned black hole swallowing the entire planet. It wouldn't even be surprising.

Princess Sparkle Pony discusses the surge---that is to say, the surge in demand across the Middle East for the shoe which the Iraqi journalist hurled at Bush.  The owner of the factory has had to take on extra staff.   Sadly, it is an exceptionally ugly shoe.  But PSP has a whole gallery of Mideastern shoe-based art on display at his blog.  For example.  Also.

Speaking of shoes, you can play "Hit Bush with a Shoe" at Under the Lobsterscope.

Cheney doesn't know why people don't like him.   TBogg does.

The only real difference between Dick Cheney and Ted Bundy is that Bundy felt a twinge of remorse at the end.

Oh. And Bundy never shot a friend in the face while drunk. So score one for Ted.

Apparently the latest spin from ex-Bush staffers is that Katrina brought down the Bush administration.  Mustang Bobby:

Ex-Bush aides are telling Vanity Fair that Hurricane Katrina knocked the wind out of the Bush administration and it never recovered....So all the missteps, ineptness, and outright lies and partisan hackery that came before -- Abu Ghraib, Valerie Plame, Teri Schiavo, Social Security reform, warrantless wiretapping -- were okay, but then along comes a hurricane and it's all ruined? Nice try....

Nothing that happens is their fault. They have raised the culture of victimhood to a high art, and the Republicans, the Party of Personal Responsibility, the folks who tell everyone else to grow up and suck it up, are blaming their failure on a natural disaster....

Matthew at These Bastards agrees:

The impending end of our 8 year odyssey into the depths of the imperial criminal Presidency of Emperor George W. Bonaparte has caused many former loyalists to reflect on where it all went wrong. While the more bitter of us would say "when he took the oath of office the first time" these scholars, aiders, and abetters have decided to take a different path. They have chosen a moment where they thought it all went pear shaped. Not 9/11 or the months the administration spent ignoring intel on terrorism and 9/11, not the war in Iraq, not declaring victory in Iraq before the war was over, not politicizing every aspect of government, not out CIA agents because their husbands point out inconvenient facts, not stonewalling every investigation and pardoning buddies that get convicted, not putting sugar in the economy's gastank then setting it on fire in the middle of a busy intersection, no they have chosen Katrina as the place where the Bush Presidency went wrong....

But Katrina isn't where it all went wrong guys, it's just where people realized "Oh shit, he really doesn't give a fuck or know or care or anything" and moved him from the "just a shitty President" category into the "worst President ever/may be actively trying to destroy the country" column.....Katrina is just where they realized he doesn't how to do anything and started to actively hate him for it.

Flory at Whiskey Fire doesn't think there is any point in searching for a rational geopolitical motive behind the Iraq invasion. 

[T]here simply isn't one. There really was no single reason or coherent set of reasons why this nation had to invade a fifth rate military power that posed no threat to our national interests. Rather there was a perfect storm of obsessions, hidden agendas and garden variety self-interest that intersected in Baghdad....

So Flory proposes a list of nonrational and flat-out irrational reasons, including (but not limited to):

Halliburton and oil. Dick Cheney might be a late nite punchline, but he's also been the single most powerful vice president evah -- and he ran Haliburton. The Bush family made a lot of money in the oil bidness. Controlling access to the world's second biggest proven oil reserves really wasn't incidental to the decision....

The intellectual vacuum at the center. Bush is an easily manipulated boob who thinks he's an intellectual (witness this howler). There's nobody on the planet easier to play than that guy.

Mick Arran at Fact-esque comments on the Bush reality-deflecting bubble.

There simply is no possibility that any Bush, apparently, will ever voluntarily relinguish the saving graces of living in a bubble no matter how much reality intrudes or how often the bubble is assaulted by facts. Leave us take for a moment Laura Bush's response in an interview when she was asked about the infamous shoe-throwing incident.

[S]he said the incident reflects change in Iraq.

"As bad as the incident is, in my view, it is a sign that Iraqis feel a lot freer to express themselves," she said.

Uh-huh. There's always a positive spin you can put on everything. Sure the insurrection and IED's are dangerous and people get hurt but on the other hand the Iraqis are feeling free to express themselves through explosives.

The Heretik just wants it to be over (great artwork here).

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