A week before he gets flushed down the toilet of history, almost ex-President Bush gave an exit interview, reminding us why he’s destined for the sewer. In charitable moments, I’ve wondered whether Bush’s inarticulateness obscures any deep thinking on his part. But,no, this press conference makes clear how his mangling of the English language merely magnifies his incredible shallowness.
I’ve never seen a president so blithely unaware of the gravity of his office. President Johnson’s eyes were filled with tears the day he resigned. That doesn’t obviate his role in escalating the Vietnam War and needlessly killing thousands of people, but at least he acknowledged responsibility. Even President Nixon felt the need to constantly reassure the American people that he “was not a crook”. Reagan initiated the era of President Lite, but even he projected an air of fatherly maturity.
But Bush? He termed Abu Ghraib a “disappointment”. A “disappointment” is when your team doesn’t win the Superbowl. You don’t use that word to describe your reaction to horrific acts of torture. Repulsed, maybe? Sickened? He termed the failure to find WMD in Iraq “disappointing” as well. Please, it was his rationale for a war that has killed tens of thousands of people and maimed and ruined the lives of thousands more! And he refers about it like it was a rainstorm interrupting his tropical vacation.
“I don’t know if you want to call those mistakes or not, but they were-things that didn’t go according to plan” he adds. Well, George, I would call them mistakes. Big ones. And since when do Presidents expect “plans” to flow flawlessly in a diverse and complex world? Heads of state implement policy. They don’t “make plans”.
When reality didn’t line up with his perception, Bush, as is his wont, simply lied. The federal government “plucked thirty thousand people off their roofs” during Hurricane Katrina? Funny, I don’t remember Federal troops showing up for days. Bush conveniently dismisses the fact that New Orleans has yet to remotely recover from Katrina. The world still admires America? Funny that, when both polls and world leaders say otherwise.
Bush blithely disregards the destruction–physical, economic, moral–that he leaves in his wake. He says “burdens of the office” are overstated. He cracks his old stupid jokes like he was a car salesman. I think I regarded my tenure as PTA President with more seriousness. I can’t decide whether Bush’s bland indifference to the suffering he causes is worse than honest intentional evil.
So let’s hurry up and flush that toilet. Too bad the American people are left swabbing the bowl.
