Bush's Legacy

I didn't see the interview Charles Gibson from ABC did with George and Laura Bush on Sunday; I couldn't deal with watching him lie to everyone over and over again. Of course, since I watch the news, I have caught little snippets of the interview and am glad I didn't watch it. Most of what I have seen, Bush blames everyone but himself for the mountainous failures of his administration. Howard Fineman appearing on Countdown last night summed it up in the audio sound bite of the decade. “Bush just doesn’t care. He never cared” But you see, that's just it, conservatives don't care about government. What was the Reagan line, the nine worst words in the English language are "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." How can you govern if you don't care about government?

The fact that he doesn't care has been proven over and over during the last eight years. Everyone, I am sure, remembers the Hurricane Katrina debacle. Weeks of waiting for help from the government, people wanting to help being stopped by FEMA from helping and then FEMA not helping. It was a total disaster. And now, I hear that Hurricane Ike cleanup in Texas is just as bad. The Republican Governor of Texas, "Gov. Rick Perry was so incensed at delays in sending cleanup crews to the rotting, city-size pile of waste that he angrily told reporters two weeks ago that he is going to have the state clean it up and then stick FEMA with the bill." (from NY Times).

In addition, he started a war that was not necessary that has killed over four thousand Americans and who knows how many Iraqis, with what has now been exposed as a pack of lies. He has taken away many rights of the American people in the name of security. He has been responsible for ordering torture of detainees which is against every principle for which this country stands. He has substantially hurt America's standing in the world. He has blocked stem cell research that could have helped cure some of the most horrible diseases known to man. He has hurt the environment by blocking scientific information from becoming public. He has hurt the environment by changing rules that he controls through federal agencies to allow companies to pollute more, and cleanup less. He has helped cause the worst economic disaster in seventy years by putting people in charge of regulatory agencies who are either grossly unqualified, or who have a vested interest in not regulating, shall I say, tenaciously. And now I read that good ole Karl Rove will be working on the Bush Legacy Project. That is really rich. I have to stop writing now because I am laughing so hard!