Taking the Long View

After reading this article ... well, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Sure, most people say he's unsuccessful now, but history may judge him differently. Look at Richard Nixon."

Yes, let's look at Richard Nixon. Actually, let's look away from Richard Nixon, because that's just too scary to contemplate. Nixon is one of the scariest presidents we've had. Paranoid, power-hungry, struggling to extricate us from a nasty war, conservative, cranky, played hardball against his enemies ... what was that about Bush again?

"Yes," you may say, "but Nixon went to China!" And Bush can't even find China on a map.

But perhaps we shouldn't judge Bush on his failures. We should judge him on his successes. Conservative media outlets are quick to point out plenty of those. For one thing, he got the Taliban out of Afghanistan, except for the ones who are still killing American troops, but there's far fewer Taliban now, so it's all good unless one of those troops is your child. And Bush got Moammar Khadafy to say he'll never never never build nuclear weapons, cross his heart and hope to die, and we trust him because he really, really meant it this time. (As Bush might say, "I know his heart.")

And, of course, he got Saddam Hussein out of Iraq. And everything's gonna be hunky-dory there anytime now.

But why judge Bush too harshly? After all, he's only human. Who among us has not completely fucked up the country at one time or another? Like the bible says, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." So Bush cast that motherfucker.