Americans are Counting The Days to the End of the Bush Administration

According to a famous anecdote in the 1970s George H.W. Bush, worried that his wayward son, George W. Bush would “ruin the family name,” dispatched Bush junior to work on the campaign of his friend.

But it seems that all the old man’s efforts came to naught. George W. Bush still ended up ruining the family name. His presidency will go down in history as one of the worst in the last 100 years of American government. Things are so bad that many Republicans are considered switching to Team Obama and party leaders are wailing about “how badly the brand has been damaged.”

The Bush-Cheney administration has managed to alienate its core supporters with its excessive spending and disastrous foreign military adventure. Ironically, when Bush was elected he billed himself as a fiscal and social conservative who wanted to avoid getting into the trap of national building. But eight years later we have a budget deficit, and are stuck in the middle of a nation-building project in Iraq.

The Bush-Cheney administration has done such a bad job of governing, that people started hankering for Bill Clinton’s scandal plagued term. At least bimbo eruptions were better than high gas prices, unemployment, a never-ending foreign war and record home foreclosure rates. Many Americans abide by the saying, “When Clinton lied, noone died.” Clinton’s presidency, while successful overall, will still be stained by high-profile sex scandals and the impeachment. But the Bush administration’s scandals, make Clinton look like an angel.

Here are few Dubya’s greatest misses:

• The Iraq War has been an unmitigated failure right from the beginning. Some pundits might argue that America’s superior might crushed the Iraqi army in less than two months, but the country went to war on a lie. Iraq never had any weapons of mass destruction, and Saddam was not a conspirator in the 9-11 attack, but those are the two lies that were sold to the gullible American populace. War is bad enough, but sending young men and women to die for a mistruth is particularly distasteful. And to add insult to injury gas prices are still rocketing and American tax payers will get stuck with the $1.7 trillion bill for the Iraq War. Bush has created a lose-lose situation.
• Roman Emperor Nero fiddled while Rome burned, Bush vacationed while Americans drowned. The most powerful country in the world took more than a week to mobilize rescue forces, while Americans drowned on live TV. And what about the Louisiana National Guard? Most of them were Iraq.
• Apart from kidnapping and torturing foreign nationals, the Bush administration has also unleashed its powers on American citizens. Apparently the bill of rights is in the president’s words is “just a bit of paper.” Jose Padilla, an American citizen was held for four years without charge, access to an attorney or to his family, before finally being tried and convicted on terrorism charges.
• The Clinton administration’s sex scandals pale in comparison to the Bush administrations. Some of the sex scandals we have seen over the last eight years including U.S. Rep Mark Foley being caught preying on underage boys; Jeff Gannon, a former male prostitute and fake journalist enjoying late night visits to the White House, and the Rev. Ted Haggerty, leader of the Assemblies of God Church, and a close advisor to the president, being busted with a male hooker and drugs.
• And most importantly the Bush administration has failed on its biggest promise to capture alleged 9-11 mastermind Osama Bin Laden. The 9-11 terrorist attack basically kick-stated the Bush president, and he has failed on the main focal point of this campaign. After seven years of fighting we still do not have Bin Laden in a cell or a coffin. The government had all but abandoned searching for Bin Laden, but now an election is rolling round Bush has suddenly remembered his unfinished business.

The fact that eight years of Bush-Cheney has left the economy and America’s international reputation in tatters, should not surprise anyone. George W. Bush had a habit of failing in most of his ventures or leaving places in a worse state that when he found them. His early ventures in the oil business were so disastrous that his dad had to call his Saudi buddies to bail out junior.

Bush’s term as governor of Texas, left the state with a terrible environmental record, a non-working education system (the widely criticized No Child Left Behind Act was based on Texas’ education model) and a high execution rate. Bush brought the same lackadaisical attitude and incompetent management style into the White House, which led us to today’s gloomy situation. George W. Bush’s presidency was so disastrous that it should guarantee a Democratic victory in November, but how we can trust a populace that was blinded by religious and racial scare tactics twice?

The next president will be faced with the Herculean task of cleaning up Bush’s messes. It could take him all of his first term and part of his second term (providing he wins one) to set the ship of state back on an even keel. Maybe an appropriately symbolic present for the incoming the president will be a mop, dustpan and gloves. He’ll need to get work fast.