Somebody call that woman from Russellville who sniffed at the Bush legacy bus and said she and the rest of the U.S. were better off after eight years of the Reign of Error. I need her to tell me everything is still fine. (DBI notes that Timothy Egan writes about Bush, worst president ever, in NYT today.)
September’s new jobless claims were the highest monthly number since September 2001. Simple question: Do you vote for a successor who went down the line with Bush?
From Egan’s piece:
Among the many dispiriting things to come out of Bob Woodward’s quartet of books on George W. Bush is his observation that the president has not changed since he first started talking to Woodward in 2001.
No growth. No evolution. No regrets.
“History,” Bush replied, when asked by Woodward how he would be judged over time. “We don’t know. We’ll all be dead.” Broke, as well.
It would have been nice to let Bush’s two terms marinate a while before invoking Herbert Hoover and James Buchanan from the cellar of worst presidents. But then — over the last two weeks — he completed the trilogy of national disasters that will be with us for a generation or more.
George Bush entered the White House as a proponent of a more humble foreign policy and a believer that government should get out of the way at home. He leaves as someone with a trillion-dollar war aimed at making people who’ve hated each other for a thousand years become Rotary Club freedom-lovers, and his own country close to bankruptcy after government did get out of the way.
It’s a Mount Rainier of shame and folly.