A fond farewell to the "Mission Accomplished" man
by Bryan Zepp Jamieson
Watching Putsch prance around trying to put lipstick on his failed presidency (an action akin to bronzing a turd) is both funny and sad. It's bad enough that despite everything that has happened over the past eight years, one in four Americans still think he was a good President. "Bob" once said that "If you consider how dumb a person with an IQ of 100 is, then ponder that by definition half the population is dumber than THAT!" Figure you can spot the dumbest 25% by the Bush stickers on their cars.
You look at the Putsch supporters, and you think of Detroit Lions fans. Yes, the team did go 0-16 this year, and there weren't many bright spots. But where the Lions have it over Putsch is that you can at least hope that the team will do better next year. Supporting Putsch at this point is a bit like supporting the Cleveland Spiders, a long-defunct major league baseball team that suffered the ignominy of compiling the worst record in major league history. As with Putsch, who was given a country that was at peace, had budget surpluses and no problems bigger than Clinton's zipper, the Cleveland Spiders were contenders who traded away all their talent, including some pitcher named Cy Young, and went 20-134 the following year. They were 84 games out of first place, 35 games out of next-to-last. They were so bad they got traded to the American League.
Did Putsch even have 20 wins? I've been trying to think of bright spots in his presidency, and about all I could come up with was his fight against AIDs in Africa. I applauded his move into Afghanistan to capture bin Laden, but that ended the minute I realized the fool planned to stay and occupy the country. Just like Alexander. Just like England. Just like the Soviet Union. England beat the odds: they survived the attempt.
AIDs in Africa. A good thing on his part, surely. But that was all I could come up with. The rest of his eight years were just one protracted cringe of humiliation and shame for Americans and all of America's friends.
There was 9/11. He reacted exactly like a schoolyard bully who just got gobsmacked, blinking in utter disbelief, at a total loss, and then picking himself up and running away. Who can forget his frantic race around the country in AF1, hopscotching from one imagined point of safety to another, until finally, three days later, he realized it was safe to bluster and then, and only then, went to ground zero to shout defiance at a foe who had already walked away, laughing?
And the party dirtbags who put that stammering, shiftless idiot in the White House didn't waste any time exploiting 9/11. The first thing they did was call for a tax cut for the rich. Less than two weeks after 9/11, I wrote that this was "the sort of sickening tackiness that so often accompanies right wing sanctimony and ignorance. Unfortunately, it isn't limited to the trashiest lower reaches of the right.
While Democrats in the House and Senate were setting differences aside – even the matter of the fact that Putsch stole the election – Republicans, with a whoop, were taking advantage of the war fever, patriotism, and confusion to push as hard as they could for their various pet projects.
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