The Bush Years: A Horror-Stricken Look Back

It’s almost over.

Looking back at the past 8 years of the Bush presidency, one question irrepressibly comes to mind:  what the hell was wrong with us?  We must have all taken severe head injuries at some point; that’s the only explanation I can think of as to why we let Bush and his cronies get away with so much crap over the past 8 years.  It was like an experiment to see how much one man, with a little help from his friends, can fuck up the greatest country in the world.

And he got re-elected!  That was really mind-blowing; I have never been so disappointed in America as I was that day.

It’s been said that no one could have seen the disastrous Bush presidency coming.  For the most part, that’s true. . .except that somebody did see it coming, and said so in the least likely place to find real news: no, not Fox News, but The Onion, parody newspaper supreme.

When Bush was first elected given the office by his dad’s Supreme Court cronies admitted into the Oval Office, the Onion ran an article entitled  Bush:  ‘Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over’.   He might not have actually said it, but damned if he didn’t mean it, and damned if he didn’t live up to it.  Seriously, read that article.  It’s the most eerily-prophetic thing I’ve ever seen.

Granted, some good things did come out of the Bush years:  The Daily Show probably wouldn’t be so popular without him, and. . .hm.  Hang on, I’ll try to think of another one.

Oh, by the way, even if we ignored Iraq, Afghanistan, and the economic collapse,  there would still be Bush’s environmental record to mark him as one of the worst presidents ever.   As Will Cuppy said in The Decline And Fall Of Practically Everybody, Alexander The Great is called “The Great” because he killed more people of more different types than anybody else before or since; I guess Bush was trying for being called at least “The Awesome,” for recklessly endangering more people of more different types than anybody else before or since.  We’re not safer at home (thanks to deregulation of the financial industry and environmental pollution) or abroad (damn near everybody hates us now), despite all the statements to the contrary by the Administration.  We are not only worse off now than we were eight years ago, we’re completely fucked now from where we were eight years ago.  Thanks, idiots in charge and the idiots who kept voting for them.

But it’s almost over now.  2 more days, in which time I would not be surprised if Bush found a way to make the moon crash into Earth, and this will all be over; we can finally crawl out of the rubble of America and start rebuilding.

And how did this eight-year Reign of Error come to an end?  Please, Onion, tell us:

Black Man Given Nation’s Worst Job

Congrats and good luck, Obama.

VS – 1.18.09

P.S. I’m still trying to think of some other good that came out of the Bush Administration. . .any ideas?