Definitely NOT The “Burning Bush” Moses Had In Mind...
So here we are, post-Campaign '08, standing on the verge of getting it on as America never has before—with a president unlike any other who has preceded him waiting in the wings to take office, or, as my mother said, “We're at the 'licking the batter out of the bowl' stage...it ain't 'cake' until it's outta the oven on January 20th”. In that interim, we get our final looks at the miserable failure of a president of the last eight crapper-swirling years.
One George W. Bush.
We look at what is, and what will be, and they are quite different indeed. We said this about the exiting resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue a few months ago:
For all of the positives Senator Obama brings to the table, and those positives are indeed mighty ones, when I look at America's long, and unresolved history of racism—right down to last year's “noose-a-palooza”—his present nearness to the levers of power still reads as an anomaly to me and many others you would think would be turning cartwheels of joy. What could move this country to this strange precipice we stand at today?
Say hello to the forty-third President of The United States, George W. Bush.
Should Barack Obama pull this thing off, down the road, the most diamond-hard of hard-core American racists will burn effigies of Dubya's figure, as they will blame him, with some truth behind it—for the country's electing its first Black president. Bush has so trashed the country—its reputation, its infrastructure, its economy, the military, the right to privacy, the Justice Department—just about every element of any piece of government that his “King Midas In Reverse” hand has touched, that he has moved America to the point where for many more than ever before, race will not matter as much in their choice of president, and said people are seriously willing to consider the polar opposite image of the executive branch awfulness they've endured for eight years.
Commander In Chief can't speak? Let's get one who can, huh?
Commander In Chief is an absolute idiot? Can we get one who's got an above-average intelligence, please?
Commander In Chief has the diplomatic skill of an F-5 hurricane? Howsabout someone who will talk to people and exhaust negotiation before more hasty, destructive considerations?
Commander In Chief is everything people have come to utterly despise in the typical, privileged class of leadership for over two hundred years? Okay, fuck it. we will at this point actually consider someone for the job who does not even look remotely like the dude who has fucked this place to Kingdom-Goddamn-Come.
And yes...even if it means said person is a Black dude who can trace his bloodline all the way back to the Motherland in so few steps, Alex Haley's grave is probably trembling from inner centrifugal forces as we speak.
The Bushian legacy may be akin to the fabled volcanic one of the Hawaii of Barack Obama's youth. The destructive power of a earth-shattering volcanic eruption rains down boiling lava and a thick ash—burning away and fossilizing the past in so many ways. And from that hell-spawned lava, mineral-rich ash and debris, the soil becomes hyper-fertilized to the point that what grows from it...can often be spectacular.
And as I said at the top, “here we are”. Note in the passage I wrote before, this line,
“...the most diamond-hard of hard-core American racists will burn effigies of Dubya's figure, as they will blame him, with some truth behind it—for the country's electing its first Black president.“
We've already seen the pundits and pretenders cast that blame Bush-ward in the days leading up to the GOP's taking those electoral brass knuckles in the grille on the fourth. The talk of how Obama and many downticket candidates had successfully hitched the square-wheeled wagon of Bushdom to their republican opponents was a daily moan for those hoping for wingnut success. Sarah Palin—that paragon of bottom-o'-the-ticket loyalty—didn't throw Bush under the bus. She effectively got off the bus and via remote-control blew the damn thing into carbonized shrapnel “Speed”-style with Bush still on board, and peering out the window with that classic look of mock-concern furrowing his brow. And as I said, when the history of this time is written, many will caption President Bush's picture with the line, “The guy who fucked it all up for the GOP”. In our newfound seas of post-partisan positivity, there are jagged islets of bitterness. And George W. Bush's shipwreck of a presidency lays beached upon them.
The last thing this little bantam rooster had to phlegmatically crow about was his precious economy—and his “King Midas In Reverse” touch (to forever be dubbed here as “The Fickle Fecal Finger of Fate™”) has now wrecked even that nearly beyond repair. And now that everything... everything lay in sad ruins on the estate of “The House Of Bush”, you will find the usual few who will down the road a piece deny they ever said a kind word about the man they fellated till their tongues muscled up enough to do “pose-downs”. Anecdotes will unfurl, detailing the awful behind-the-scenes skullduggery, and soft-skulled stupid that went down in Bush's cipher of closed-minded certainty. His middle name might as well be “macadam” for all the bus traffic that'll go over him.
And yet...there will be a another group...those who for all their degrees (albeit from Grade-Z universities...) and title-age would appear to know better—who will defend against the coming immolation of “their” president—inflicted by progressives and their conservative brethren alike. These sad people will rush to Bush's defense like flies to a hot mound of shit, because they have spent the last eight years totally invested in propping up this tin-horn punk, and spinning him as some Brundle-machine-spawned amalgam of Teddy Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and John Wayne—a thankless task, made all the more difficult by its exposure by the historical record at hand. To own up to Bush's captaincy of his eight-year cruise on the S.S. Failboat would be to own up to their own part in stoking its boilers below-decks for the whole damned time. Tied into that ass-covering is the attempt to get out in front of history's avalanche of facts. It is an effort to hit the reset button on the Bushian legacy to make everyone forget about all the awful blue-screens, freezes and crashes that have come to identify it. So, rather than allow the natural “Nixonizing”™ of George W. Bush, and themselves (these sycophants) being tarred with that gooey brush as enablers they are actively working the usual channels to nip reality in the bud.
They would be funny...if they weren't so orphanage fire sad.
This almost-immediately-after-the-election piece in the
Earlier this year, 12,000 people in San Francisco signed a petition in support of a proposition on a local ballot to rename an Oceanside sewage plant after George W. Bush. The proposition is only one example of the classless disrespect many Americans have shown the president. According to recent Gallup polls, the president's average approval rating is below 30% -- down from his 90% approval in the wake of 9/11. Mr. Bush has endured relentless attacks from the left while facing abandonment from the right.
This is the price Mr. Bush is paying for trying to work with both Democrats and Republicans. During his 2004 victory speech, the president reached out to voters who supported his opponent, John Kerry, and said, “Today, I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent. To make this nation stronger and better, I will need your support, and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust.”
Those bipartisan efforts have been met with crushing resistance from both political parties.
You know...I'm truly sorry I missed all those “bipartisan efforts”...you see, I was busy getting my ribs kicked in by all those kind “Bushies” extending a
This is the same rotgut grade of spin deployed by wingnut command and control during the campaign season—which is to say that its quality resides somewhere between dreadful and abysmal. And as the old saying goes, “A fish rots from the head down” with this crowd, because that same message “command and control” bedshit is manifesting itself in their sub-JV propaganda arm—the right-tard blogosphere. When I first saw this next
But this is but a Photoshop. An “alternate universe” headline. The actual piece was real, and its author...just that out of his Goddamned mind.(GNB Ed. Note: JOHN HINDERAKER—The Artist Formerly Known As Hindrocket:)
“Obama thinks he is a good talker, but he is often undisciplined when he speaks. He needs to understand that as President, his words will be scrutinized and will have impact whether he intends it or not. In this regard, President Bush is an excellent model; Obama should take a lesson from his example. Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn’t raise his standards, he will exceed Bush’s total before he is inaugurated.”
You know...it'd be so much fun to tear ol' Hindrocket limb from limb, like a barn cat whaling on a poison-addled mouse. And just as easy. There are countless devastating attacks one could end his ass with after a mad cow-spawned bleat like that one. And of course, this other all-time hit of his:
“It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.”
But you know what...let's just go back to Hindy's latest little bit of “salad shooting” shall we?
JOHN HINDERAKER—The Artist Formerly Known As Hindrocket: “Obama thinks he is a good talker, but he is often undisciplined when he speaks. He needs to understand that as President, his words will be scrutinized and will have impact whether he intends it or not. In this regard, President Bush is an excellent model; Obama should take a lesson from his example. Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn’t raise his standards, he will exceed Bush’s total before he is inaugurated.”
Let it hang there in the air...like a big, treat-swollen pînata, and the whole world with a nail-studded bat. Only two words are needed...two measly fucking words and one image to kick Hinderaker's silly ass up between his shoulder blades on this canard.
“Mission Accomplished” These charlatans were as oversold as the nuthin' stocks that buoyed the Bush-era stock market. Remember those infamous breakfasts Bush had with his cyber-stenographers in talk radio and the wingnut blogosphere to stroke their frail, basement-pallored egos and let them know in no uncertain terms that they were on his team? In the end, he needn't have wasted the danish, coffee and nappy-time cajoling these losers. They'd been in the tank since day one, and have so heavily invested what few shreds of integrity they were lucky to have as capital in backing Bush's EVERY SORDID MISDEED, that to dare cite his failures without false equivocation would be to highlight their sad, toadying support of these miscarriages of office.
The effigying of their beloved boss has begun...but these “not-so-secret-service” men are offering up their “bodies”—their reputations (I'll wait for you to stop stifle-spittling you computer screen over that expenditure of nothing.) to pre-defend against that deserved and inevitable onslaught.
And those defenses are as ineffective as if they'd thrown a gallon of high-test onto their now-burning Bush to put him out. They are as tied to him as the various politicos who went down in defeat during the last two election cycles—the '06 midterms and now this last awful, possibly generation-killing whopper for the GOP. It wasn't that long ago when PowerLine was deemed “Blog of The Year” by Time Magazine, and Bush was still able to score cheap, macho points for his branch-moving / tumbleweed-kicking Crawford photo-ops.
Those days are long gone, as the president himself—it's been a while since anyone's given so much as a tinker's damn about him—has been swamped in his own morass of failures and the recriminations of many who blindly supported him while ceding what common sense they may have had.
Some, like Christopher “Hiccup!” Hitchens and his friend one elbow away at the “No Hope Bar”, Ms. Peggy Noonan, as well as their one-time Kool-Aid™ addicted pal Andrew Sulivan managed to walk away just as the effigy flames went from smoldering ember to dancing orange curls. They were singed. Maybe lost an eyebrow or got first degrees on their hands and face. Reddened, but politically “alive”.
The likes of Hinderaker and the reality-denying fools at the WSJ (They never did run the Obama election victory notice on the Times Square Dow Jones news “Zipper”.) are in a worse way. Blistered. Charred. “Crispy Crittered” on their own accord. Instead of simply dancing around the “Burning Man” in appreciation, their single-mined cultishness moves them to run up and embrace the roiling fire—not to extinguish it, but rather, to validate it. And burn it will, for quite some time. Immediately after January 20th when the reality and ultimately American History-making of Bush's gaffe-fastic tenure sinks in, the torches of anger and blame will alight at their most most bright from many on the right, eager to assign a reason...a living, breathing reason for this—for them—cataclysm. And many of them will be right. But those who will continue to defend? To futilely attempt to spin even when there is no solid ground beneath them, only the soft, mushy terrain of failure? As Thanksgiving nears, I think of turkeys...sometimes too stupid to not look up in the pouring rain and drown, or pile into a corner en masse when startled—unthinkingly crushing their poor brethren at the bottom.
Silly. Stupid. And senseless. Dumb as flightless, pen-raised birds. But these...are human beings. And dumb as they may be on the common sense tip and basic book learnin', you would think these Glossolaliacs with all of their fervent yammering would maybe have remembered a thing or two from church. Even if it's just a song.
It’s gonna rain, it's gonna rain,
you better get ready and bear this in mind.
God showed Noah by the rainbow sign,
no more water, but fire next time.
And if they're just fakin' it in church, a secular song is still more than enough to jog the ol' senses.
“Got me burnin', got me burnin...”
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