whyroots

Who could have ever predicted that it would go so badly? The past eight years of malfeasance, incompetence, and very bad faith have been... staggering. We have looked into the soul of politics and … shuddered! George W. Bush is our exemplar, our archetype of failure. Rue that Election Day in November 2000 when we did not elect him! 

Is it even possible to choose one moment that is somehow representative of the past eight years? I’m still processing the newfound collective agreement that the Bush years were nothing short of disastrous. A few months ago, a friend e-mailed me a graph of Bush's approval rating with the subject line “I take it back, America.” Oh, we’ve reckoned with George W. Bush -- just a tad too late. And with some exceptions, as Hendrik Hertzberg notes in this week’s New Yorker:

A gangly Illinois politician [Abraham Lincoln] … once pointed out that you can fool some of the people all of the time. We now know how many “some” is: twenty-seven per cent. That’s the proportion of Americans who, according to CNN, cling to the belief that George W. Bush has done a good job.

Indeed, it is becoming clear that the second Bush presidency will be regarded as a stain on our history -- not just a low point, but a stain, a period when we renounced our principles and revealed our baser selves as a nation. The greedy grasping for the executive, the boldfaced lies, an unnecessary and cruel war -- bad intentions inexpertly carried out. There is enough shame for us in this administration in the two words, Abu Ghraib.

In a week, George W. Bush will be out of the White House, gone but not forgotten. He will live on in ignominy, a perverse idol in our American mythology. Not a great man, he has become great in our imaginations -- a looming symbol, out of proportion with reality. For this reason, the Bush years are a hurt that won’t go away.

... In other words, I agree with the baby.

-- Sarah Dalglish

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