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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Greatest Greatness of George W. Bush
Seeing as how we're all watching George's Iraq masterpiece go up in flames, I decided to pull this one out of the archives. This was written a few days before he finally left office in 2009. Reprinted in full.
The Greatest Greatness of George W. Bush
By William Rivers Pitt
Truthout | Op-Ed
Wednesday 07 January 2009
And you can send me dead flowers every morning
Send me dead flowers by the mail
Send me dead flowers to my wedding
And I won't forget to put roses on your grave ...
- The Rolling Stones
To: George W. Bush
From: Your biggest fan
Re: Your imminent unemployment
Greetings, Mr. Bush.
I was sorry to hear about the passing of your cat, India. Eighteen years is a long time for a cat - my mother has one that's 20 and still going strong, if you can believe it - and I'm sure India had a comfortable, caring life with your family.
I got to spend part of last weekend with an old friend of mine. He's a bit older than 18, and he's also a troop who recently rotated back from a tour in Falluja. He just had a baby daughter, and he will be sent to Afghanistan before too much longer. He did his duty in Iraq, dealt his share of death and saw his friends die or be ripped to shreds right in front of him.
He was hollow in a lot of places that had been full before he went to Iraq. He was not the same man we'd said farewell to. But he was alive, and if he survives his upcoming Afghanistan tour, maybe he will get the chance to have a long, comfortable, caring life with his family, just like little India.
At present, my friend's life is the polar opposite of comfortable, and he still has Kabul waiting for him just over the horizon. His life is the way it is because of you, Mr. Bush. You have been the single greatest influence upon his time in this world; you put him over there and hollowed him out, and because of you, it's about to happen again. You were the single biggest influence upon the lives of every person he knew over there, every person he saw over there, and every person he killed over there.
It's funny. I was thinking the other day about when I marched in one of the first large-scale post-inauguration protests against you in Washington, DC. It was May of 2001, it was The Voter's Rights March to Restore Democracy, and it was a few thousand people shouting down the unutterably ruinous Supreme Court decision which unleashed, just as we then feared, everything that has since come to pass. "Not my president!" we bellowed. "Not my president!"
It's funny because that memory seems so very quaint to me now. A stolen election? Pfff. To paraphrase a different president, Americans get scarier stuff than that free with their breakfast cereal nowadays. Thanks to you, governor.
My All-Time-Grand-Prize-Bull-Goose-Gold-Medal-Winning Top Five list of what you've done, in no particular order, and in my own humble opinion:
1. You were warned by the outgoing administration when you first took office. You were warned by the Russians. You were warned by the Israelis. You were warned by the Germans. You were warned in a memo given to you by your own National Security Adviser. You were warned by men like Richard Clarke. You were warned all those times that Osama bin Laden intended to strike the United States, and still the Towers came down.
(All those people working on that Legacy Project of yours should go back to bed, by the way; they are trying to salvage the unsalvageable. You protected us, they claim? Ha. You're 0-1 on terrorism and 0-2 on war)
2. Less than a month after those Towers came down, a reporter asked what you thought we should do. "We need to counter the shockwave of the evildoer," you replied, "by having individual rate cuts accelerated and by thinking about tax rebates." I happened to be watching television and heard you say that live into a camera. The only reason I didn't throw up on myself is because my teeth were clenched too tightly for the vomit to pass my lips. I swallowed hard, grabbed a pen, and wrote down what you said and when you said it. It was October 4, 2001, just after nine in the morning. You'd like people to remember you standing on that pile of rubble in Manhattan, you with the bullhorn and the heroic pose. I, however, will always remember you pitching tax cuts to a devastated nation while a pall of poison smoke still hung in the air over Ground Zero.
3. A few years later, you wanted hundreds of billions of dollars diverted from other areas of the federal budget and into your war in Iraq. You took more than $70 billion out of the budget used by the Army Corps of Engineers in Louisiana to fund the repair and maintenance of the New Orleans levee system. Katrina struck not long after you took that money and poured it into the sand, and the levees failed for lack of funded upkeep. Through this, along with your disinterested disinclination to help your own countrymen in their hour of darkest need, you played the very last note for that old, sad, lost American city. Reflected in those actions are the same budgetary priorities that motivated you to turn Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the hospital where I was born, into an abattoir of suffering and neglect for the wounded soldiers you tore apart for a lie.
4. You let Dick "Crazy-Eyes" Cheney do whatever the hell he wanted to whomever he wanted whenever and wherever he wanted, and be damned to the damned old Constitution anyway. Cheney once said the vice president's office was not part of the same branch of government as the president's office, and he said it with his bare face hanging out the whole time. Why? He didn't want to give any of his official papers over to the National Archives, as mandated by at least two federal laws. Nope, he said, my office is in Congress today, sorry about that, but be sure to come on back after you drop dead. Or words to that effect. That's about one zillionth of a percent of what he did, because you let him pick himself to be your boss.
5. On July 19, 2006, you vetoed H.R. 810. On June 20, 2007, you vetoed S. 5. Both vetoes killed legislation aimed at funding and vastly enhancing the reach and scope of stem cell research in America. The father of someone I know died of bone marrow cancer just after that first veto; he was adopted, no family could be located, so no donor match for a bone marrow transplant could be found. With stem cell therapy, doctors could have taken his own marrow and grown enough healthy, matching marrow to save his life. Two other people I know have diabetes, like millions of Americans. Stem cell research could offer them a cure. Someone else I know has multiple sclerosis, and stem cell research could very well help her, too. She'd write you a thank-you note for those vetoes, but her right hand doesn't work so well anymore. She's getting better with her left hand, so maybe that note can get written next year.
Also, you defied lawfully issued subpoenas and potentially set a precedent that could shatter the separation of powers. You told the American people Iraq was in possession of 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons - which is one million pounds - of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent, 30,000 missiles to deliver the stuff, mobile biological weapons labs, al-Qaeda connections and uranium from Niger for use in a robust nuclear weapons program, even though all of that was a lie. You made a joking video about not being able to find any of it. You outed a deep-cover CIA agent who was running a network designed to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists, and you did so because her ambassador husband told the truth about you in the public prints.
You gave away our right to privacy by sending the NSA to spy on us. You turned us all into torturers and butchers in the eyes of the world with your decision to use Abu Ghraib prison the same way Saddam Hussein once did. You tried to appoint Henry Kissinger to lead the investigation into 9/11. You turned the entire Justice Department into a carnival of political hackery. You championed the economic policies and deregulation fantasies that have left the financial stability of millions in ashes. You used the threat of terrorism against your own people in order to give yourself political cover. You killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people who did you nor us no harm.
You did all this, and so much more.
From a certain perspective, one could argue that you have been the most successful president the country has ever seen. Think about it, because according to your definition of "success," it's true. You came into office looking to make your friends richer, and to fulfill as best you could your most overriding personal belief: that government is the problem, so government must be damaged and denuded to the point of impotence. Through your tax cuts and your two vastly expensive boondoggle wars, you made your friends rich. By unleashing Mr. Cheney and your other minions, you tore the Constitution to shreds and tatters. You have achieved both goals in smashing style, so from that certain perspective, you have triumphed.
Could you also, from the proper perspective, be considered our greatest president?
Perhaps, someday, if we make it so.
It will be in the best interests of many powerful people if we as a nation simply dismiss you and forget you ever happened. A lot of news media people want us to forget you, because in forgetting you, we would forget the media's vast complicity in your actions and misdeeds. A lot of rich people making new fortunes from war profiteering and defense contracts want us to forget they and you even exist, as it would make it possible for them to do it all again someday. A lot of politicians who stapled themselves to you would simply adore it if we forgot about you. The Republican Party would be forever in our debt if we forgot about you.
No. We will not forget you. We will remember.
We the people are going to save you from ignominious oblivion. We will remember. You could be the president who doomed America, the worst president of all time, but we must not, will not let that happen. You will be remembered differently, because we will hold the memory of you high, and behold you, and say, "Never, never, never again." We have tasted the soot and smelled the blood on the wind; we have seen how fragile our way of government is when placed in the hands of low men such as you, and because of that, you will be remembered for all time.
Your greatness will be defined by how we rise to overcome and undo what you have done. Your greatness will stand forever if we never, ever forget the hard, bitter lessons you taught us. We are responsible for this republic, for our Constitution, and for each other. We are our brother's keeper. You taught us that by becoming our Cain. You nearly slew us, but here we stand, and we defy the place in history you would relegate us to. We defy you, and by doing so, we rise.
Something like you must never again be allowed to happen to this country, and if we save ourselves by preventing you from ever happening again, your greatness is assured. You are the tallest of all possible warnings, and a promise all of us must solemnly and stalwartly keep. If we can damn you to the past, we will save our own future.
May you live forever, you son of a bitch.
http://truth-out.org/archive/component/k2/item/81880:the-greatest-greatness-of-george-w-bush
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4782595
Kali
(55,007 posts)spanone
(135,830 posts)DanTex
(20,709 posts)Roy Rolling
(6,917 posts)Where's bvar22? He does a great Mick Jagger impression of this song.
phantom power
(25,966 posts)Scuba
(53,475 posts)dwilso40641
(198 posts)were never spoken.
K&R
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)If only there was a way to make that son of a bitch read all that.
onethatcares
(16,167 posts)read that.
If someone were to read it to him he'd smirk and make a joke and never think about it again.
I've spent the past 7 years trying to forget he even existed. I thank William Pitt for kicking my memory back into being.
appal_jack
(3,813 posts)Crucial that we remember this. Thanks for summarizing B*sh's legacy so well and succinctly, Pitt. Massive k&r,
-app
riqster
(13,986 posts)He built that.
Shrike47
(6,913 posts)smallcat88
(426 posts)Got a few Republicans I want to email that to. Wish I could email it to every fool screaming impeach Obama. Not that they'd read it.
2naSalit
(86,579 posts)Too bad it's far too long for a billboard, but that's where this message belongs, on billboards all over the nation, like one every twenty miles.
N_E_1 for Tennis
(9,721 posts)Fred Gilmore
(80 posts)Fate has already been determined. It is now up to history to make sure that the degree of incompetence by this entire gang of imbeciles is never forgotten. Future generations should always be made aware of the most incompetent, the most despicable, the most arrogant, and the most illegitimate, presidencies of all time, bar none.
maddiemom
(5,106 posts)exception of Dick Cheney. That man comes the closest to true, heartless (no irony intended) and unrepentant evil of any American public figure in my lifetime. Nominate yourself for V.P. ? I hope that is never allowed to happen again.
world wide wally
(21,742 posts)pauldp
(1,890 posts)The well groomed teleprompter reader,
blue blood son of a New England death cult frat-boy with his fake texas accent,
marketed to the masses as the guy you'd like to have a beer with. It was that marketing machine
and the associated think tanks who are responsible for your top five list, not tongue tied W.
To credit W. with those things is like crediting Mickey Mouse with the corporate excesses of Disney.
The only way we can truly damn him to the past is to be clear on the fact that he was just a cartoon character
and that the animators are still very much employed.
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)Great OP and excellent point you add.
That's my line, delivered at the Veterans for Peace convention in San Francisco in August of 2003:
===
Now that the original and terrifying claims to justify this war have been proven to be utterly and completely phony - Niger recently asked for an apology, by the way - the administration is falling back upon the justification for war that these men have been formulating for years and years and years.
They call it Pax Americana, a plan to invade Iraq, take it over, create a permanent military presence there, and use the oil revenues to fund further wars against virtually every nation in that region. This we call bringing our "values" over there. Norman Podhoretz, one of the ideological fathers of this group of neoconservatives who now control the foreign policy of this nation, described the process as "The reformation and modernization of Islam." That's a pretty fancy phrase. I am a Catholic, and can therefore call it by its simpler name: Crusade. We know all about those.
This is the Project for a New American Century, the product of a right-wing think tank that, in 1997, was considered so far out there that no one ever thought its members would ever come within ten miles of setting American policy. One broken election, however, vaulted these men into positions of unspeakable power. Their white papers, their dreams of empire at the point of the sword, have become our national nightmare, and the nightmare of the world. I speak of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, John Bolton, Lewis Libby, and the rest of these New American Century men who have taken our beloved country and all it stands for it and thrown it down into the mud.
You will note that I did not name George W. Bush, for blaming Bush for the gross misadministration of this government is like blaming Mickey Mouse when Disney screws up. He is not in charge. Truman said "The buck stops here," and so we point to Bush as a symbol of all that has gone wrong. But he is not in charge...
http://www.truth-out.org/archive/component/k2/item/45194:william-rivers-pitt--we-stand-our-ground
===
...which is why this article has that line about Cheney picking himself to be Bush's boss.
pauldp
(1,890 posts)Hekate
(90,674 posts)Bush the Lesser may be hiding out and doing his paint-by-numbers hobby, but the old gang he was putatively in charge of is still talking into whatever camera they can find and getting their op-eds printed in major newspapers. Cheney and the Chickenhawks still doing the old tap dance, the old dog and pony show.
Fawke Em
(11,366 posts)Solly Mack
(90,764 posts)heaven05
(18,124 posts)please some one send this letter to discussionist. com. Please!
LongTomH
(8,636 posts)If we let Jebbie, or any Republican ascend to the White House in 2016, they'll finish the job.
Oh, before I forget: K&R
countryjake
(8,554 posts)and recommend a 1000 times. Thanks for pulling that up, Will.
AzDar
(14,023 posts)Liberal_Dog
(11,075 posts)Some powerful writing bringing back some awful memories.
ellenfl
(8,660 posts)underpants
(182,788 posts)grasswire
(50,130 posts)We never did find out what they were excavating for, in that house belonging to the people.
underpants
(182,788 posts)grasswire
(50,130 posts)It might be therapeutic, considering the events of the last 24 hours.
You're the best, Will.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Marie Marie
(9,999 posts)OK so I made up that word but you know what I mean - EXCELLENT!
onecent
(6,096 posts)Nicely done...
Dr Rise
(99 posts)Really ... all of these "people" should be riddled with guilt and shame for what they've done to so many.
True sociopaths ....
GeorgeGist
(25,320 posts)let Freedumb ring.
Duval
(4,280 posts)blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)been purposefully accelerated to a horrifying extent because of some grossly misguided sense of "fair play" and "bi-partisanship" toward the insane Republicans by our Party leaders in the last 6 years. Makes one go "Hmmm.."
Sickening!
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)really, that's the easy way out. I dont think George could put on his pants without guidance. He was a puppet. We must find the puppet master. Maybe B613.
niyad
(113,284 posts)RoccoR5955
(12,471 posts)The next time a teabagger tells me what a great president Shrub was.
lastlib
(23,224 posts)You have the same seething hatred for that filthy lying piece of shit that I do! (Sorry to be insulting to shit, but I couldn't think of anything dirtier--except Cheney.)
butterfly77
(17,609 posts)Ain't that the truth! Some of us will never forget! I love your writing style
PeoViejo
(2,178 posts)aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)Yup, India, named after the place with all those Indians like the Commanche, the other name for Texas.
Roarybeans
(48 posts)That was terrific. I couldn't agree more!
Overseas
(12,121 posts)samplegirl
(11,477 posts)by Rec. this thread!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!This deserves to be on the greatest page for as long as possible!!!
Nonhlanhla
(2,074 posts)Well said, indeed.
I was so wrong about GWB when he became president. I predicted that he would bankrupt the country and get us into war. I was mistaken. He bankrupted the world and got us into two wars. My pessimism was not far-reaching enough...
elzenmahn
(904 posts)We cannot afford to forget what this asshole did to this country.
And let's not forget this, either: for a period of time, he had a completely Republican congress. We have already seen what pure, unchecked Republicanism gets us...and we want to repeat that?
senseandsensibility
(17,026 posts)From one old time DUer to another, the history is just too raw and painful. I know what you are going to say, but I can't relive it. But thank you. Thank you for your advocacy against this lunacy while it was happening, and thank you for what you are doing now. I once admonished you (immediately after 9-11) for being too lenient on * . I've worn my anger and cynicism as a cloak of honor. But really, I am just extremely impatient. I would never have the patience to do what you do. So, again, thank you.
calimary
(81,238 posts)Because there's such powerful revisionist history being efforted from the bowels of the Dark Side.
Detestable schmuck. I sure as hell won't allow him to be forgotten. Nor every stupid, reckless, proudly ill-informed, negligent, arrogant, out-to-lunch, totally irresponsible, greedy, thoughtless, ill-conceived thing he ever perpetrated on the rest of us. His very existence helps me better to understand how the Jewish community feels when it's moved to say "NEVER AGAIN!" Our ENTIRE NATION was held hostage in a car with a drunk driver in it. And he drove this whole country into a ditch just like a drunk driver tends to do.
"May you live forever, you son of a bitch."
BRAVO, Will! Ironically, that same SOB always inspired the utmost greatness in you!
emsimon33
(3,128 posts)raccoon
(31,110 posts)cntrygrl
(356 posts)Fortinbras Armstrong
(4,473 posts)Did the young man who was about to go to Afghanistan make it back home again?
WilliamPitt
(58,179 posts)Fortinbras Armstrong
(4,473 posts)I have known some who have not.
And I hope he learns to live the demons now infesting his soul. I eventually learnt to do so after I returned from Vietnam.
I will just mention the advice my grandfather -- who had served in WWI -- gave me after I returned from Vietnam: "The nightmares will subside, but not go away completely."
WilliamPitt
(58,179 posts)He came back, but wasn't the same. Another guy I know, friend of a friend, was Green Beret Special Forces, and his Iraq deployments were only four months at a time, because they were very mission-specific; the rest of the time he would have otherwise spent deployed was spent training. He never said it outright, but I could read between the lines, and I'm pretty sure some of his crew were the ones who captured Hussein. Those were the kind of trips he took. Shades of Capt. Willard going up the river to find Colonel Kurtz.
My point: he has a look in his eye now that could melt granite. God only knows what he sees when he closes his eyes at night.
Agony
(2,605 posts)right underneath that black eye...
It can't be said enough that we will never forget who put that stain there.
Agony
marble falls
(57,080 posts)WilliamPitt
(58,179 posts)In point of fact, thank you.
Can I live long enough for us to undo the damage?
libodem
(19,288 posts)I can't think of anything, Nixon, did that makes him worse than this dumb dirtbag.
Bortman33
(102 posts)be labeled as nothing other then "Lil' "w", the murdering man child!"
Please, May there truly be a place called hell where you and your sociopathic comrades may spend an eternity wallowing in your own bile.
tosh
(4,423 posts)Thank you, Will.
This one is a keeper.