No regrets.
"History will be the judge of my decisions, but when I walked out of the Oval Office this morning, I left with the same values that I took to Washington eight years ago. And when I get home tonight and look in the mirror, I'm not going to regret what I see -- except maybe some gray hair."-- George W. Bush, on the evening of Barack Obama’s inauguration as 44th President of the United States of America, Jan. 20, 2009
This … 60-year-old adolescent – spoiled, ignorant, self-important, callous – this monumental, malicious fuck-up still feels he has nothing to be sorry for. He regrets nothing about his catastrophic presidency except a little gray hair, which interferes with his image of himself as a sexy, handsome youth. That he’s slightly disturbed by his gray hair, which came as a natural result of genes and aging, not because of any real worry or stress during the last eight years, makes me sick to my stomach.
George W. Bush caused the deaths of more than 4,000 American soldiers by lying this country into an illegal war against a country which posed no threat to us, but he has no regrets.
He ruined the lives of tens of thousands more Americans when they were dreadfully injured or maimed in that war, both physically and psychologically, but George has no regrets.
He caused the deaths and maiming of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children, but he has nothing to regret.
He shat upon America’s Constitution and her People, but he has no regrets.
He presided over the collapse of America’s and the world’s economy, bringing us all to the brink of global depression through his policy of giving to the rich at the expense of the poor, looking the other way as the deregulated market and financial sectors gleefully took part in a massive, global Ponzi scheme, and encouraging Americans to buy, buy, buy even if they didn’t have the money for it. People are losing their jobs, their homes, their life savings, and their chance for a quiet and respectable retirement, yet George has no regrets.
There are countless other disasters Bush was either responsible for or was up to his neck in, including the government’s shameful response to Hurricane Katrina, the detention without trial and torture of prisoners taken during his propaganda War on Terror, the lawless spying on Americans and destruction of their civil rights, and the total corruption of the nation’s Department of Justice, but except for the fact that he’s grayer than he was in January 2000, he has no regrets.
This man is a monster, a horror. He’s both a common criminal and a war criminal. If this nation does not abide by its own laws, which require his prosecution and the prosecutions of his cohorts, we will squander any credibility and good will that the election of Barack Obama as President restored to us as a nation and a people.
If we allow Bush and his gang to go free, to not face justice and a fair trial; if we turn our faces and allow them to be above the law; if we try to “move ahead” without at least trying to cleanse this monstrous stain from the moral fabric of our democracy, we will have lost our democracy once and for all.
Finally, Osama bin Laden will have achieved his goal of destroying America, helped along handily by George W. Bush, who has no regrets.
6 comments:
There was nothing polite about the booing Bushie got when he left the White House. I had to laugh when the TV talking heads said, "How rude". To them I say, "Are you morons?"
Bush is the by-product forced on us by a collection of narrow minded special interest groups. Wealthy string pullers, Halliburton and it's wannabes, crazed religious fanatics, the right wing media, the ignorant, the stupid, the uneducated, the anal compulsives ... and assorted Nixonites and Raygunites leftovers still working in DC.
I have no idea what Obama can or will do - but at a minimum, he's certainly not a Raygun-Bush practitioner.
I love your fire, dear. Today I'm just glad he's gone, although I just heard on Olberman that he was, in fact, gone (on vacation) for more than three years during his two terms in office. So on top of everything else, he wasn't even working full-time!
His quote sounds to me more like he's trying to convince himself, not us. I think, if there's even the tiniest shred of human decency left in him, no matter how deeply buried, he'll be haunted every time he looks in the mirror, or even thinks too hard about things.
Or maybe I'm just being disgustingly optimistic. It's early. I don't think very well in the mornings.
I think he'll eventually be held responsible for all of his crimes. If not by our country, than by the world court. He may think his criminal minions made it safe for him to break treaties and laws, but the world does not.
We'll never convict our own...but there's a middle way.
Obama and the democratic congress sign on to the International Criminal Court (which Clinton helped form, but Bush refused to join).
The ICC can put Bush & Co. on trial, even convict in absentia. It may not put Bush in jail, but it would at least keep him from visiting many, many countries for fear of arrest.
That way, we don't set a precedent for a new administration convicting a prior one (which could get really ugly and political over time), but we still hold Bush accountable.
In the long run, the US would actually be more accountable because we would be subject to the ICC in the future.
It's a win-win for everyone...except Bush.
Wil, that's an excellent solution to this conundrum. Obama is pretty smart; I hope he does exactly what you described and that the ICC can prosecute BushCo.
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