So, last night at 6PM was the deadline to send a personal farewell letter to Mister Bush, which is fittingly to be delivered via Karl Rove – no doubt as a “taunt” in order to publish the most heated rhetoric and the worst of the accusations, names and diatribes in another pathetic attempt to “save” Bush’s legacy from the deserved Epic Fail Presidency that applies to nearly everything that was done over the past eight years.
Although I have written more than my share of venomous posts and pointed out in very candid terms just how much of a disaster this administration has been, I think my parting shot will be something of a different nature. Because, many many people will not forget the thousands of deaths on 9/11 after warnings were ignored and focus was taken off of al Qaeda for a renewed effort to restart the Cold War (mission accomplished there too), nor the thousands of military deaths, injuries, PTSD, or hundreds of billions of dollars squandered in Iraq. And while I can list page after page after page of carelessness, callousness, willfulness or incompetence (including demanding that the Palestinians hold elections even though you were warned that Hamas would likely win, or ignoring Hurricane Katrina or admitting to being involved in discussions of torturing and knowing of illegal warrantless wiretapping and….well, like I said, there are countless other things but I’ll leave it at that for now).
What I want to do, as surprising as it may sound is find a small silver lining in the wake of the complete and utter destruction and dismantling of the Constitution, the American dream and our reputation around the world and say thank you. Thank you, George. Thank you, Dick, Karl, Donald, Condi, Ashcroft, Norquist, Santorum, Hastert, Frist, DeLay, Miers, McCain and countless other republican “leaders”..Thank you, Rush and Hannity and Beck and Coulter and “Brownie” and Larry Craig and Rudy “noun, verb, 9/11” and Kristol.
And so many others.
Thank you for completely destroying the façade that has been the republican party “values” and ideals. Thank you for exposing your greedy and selfish and hypocritical selves to tens of millions of young voters, who have now voted Democratic in three straight elections and will likely be Democratic voters forever. Thank you for further alienating Hispanics, African Americans, veterans, the LGBT community and millions of other voters who have seen your true intent and will not vote against their interest for quite some time. Thank you for showing in a short eight years of domination over all three Federal branches of Government (and maybe a new “fourth branch”) just how destructive the conservative ideology is. How, when the conservative economic theory is implemented, 90%+ of Americans lose. How when a neoconservative “preemptive war” mentality is imposed in the false name of “spreading democracy”, everyone other than the contractors lose. How when a radical social agenda is rammed down the throats of Americans, they will eventually realize that the Federal Government should stay out of their bedrooms. Thank you for marginalizing yourselves as the party of angry racists, bigots and old greedy white men. Thank you for overreaching so much on so many things that voter suppression and stolen elections (and the rightful outrage) are now exposed as “republican Party” actions.
So I guess it isn’t all miserable, as a small consolation here or there makes me see some small bright side. In four years, we went from talk of a “permanent republican majority” to an epic fail of the highest order – one that has created a mistrust of the party, the people and the policies that would have otherwise never happened. A situation where people like Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney and Bobby Jindal are being held up as the standard bearers for the future.
And maybe the legacy of the Bush administration will have one good point to it – it shone a bright light on the true intent of the republican party, and has pulled back the curtain to expose it for the vile failed selfish party that it has come to be.
For that, and hopefully for a housecleaning where relatively sane heads can prevail and be a rational opposition party that is willing to work for the good of the American people will emerge. And if not, then thank you for accelerating the decline of failed ideas as public policy. Sometimes we have to take a number of steps back before moving forward. Here, it is clear that we have taken a number of significant steps backwards – but thanks to you, we are moving forward again. Slowly and we have a long way to go, but at least we are moving forward again.
Most of all, thank you for reminding us just how bad certain things can be – hopefully we will never forget it.
I know that I won’t.
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Please join this Facebook group which is requesting (demanding) a special prosecutor to investigate war crimes. This is in conjunction with what buhdydharma is doing with the petition at Democrats.com. We have close to 1,400 members in under 3 weeks.