Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Lost in the MLK shuffle — How much do I hate George W. Bush

Image thanks to Fogiv

I’ve scored a precious “work from home” day and thought I’d keep my old buddy CNN running in the background as they ramp up to tomorrow.  Prominent on my IGoogle frontpage is my faithful “Bush Countdown” counter that I clearly remember installing, with great despair, when it was a thousand something.  One day, four hours and 42 minutes when I checked in this morning, the day I had waited over a thousand days for, and CNN doesn’t seem to give a damn.  

CNN and I have been constant companions even longer than that — I had moved over from the broadcast networks somewhere between 9/11 and “Shock and Awe” — and I had come to depend on CNN to relate to me the “mood of the country”.  I’ve noticed over the years how, as public opinion goes, so goes CNN.  They slavishly adored GWB and faithfully disseminated White House talking points until the country turned on him post-Katrina.  I clearly remember the ass shellacing they gave John Murtha a few months before for daring to publicly question the war.

but ever since Katrina, CNN and I have been pretty much on the same page as far as George W Asshat was concerned.  Until this weekend, until today.  I can only assume the rest of the country is out of synch with me too — all tightly focused on hope and change and history being made and moving forward.  But I’m not ready to move forward just quite yet.  

I get the part where tomorrow is perhaps the most significant moment in the life histories of many African Americans because of the skin color of our new president.  I think it’s historic too, of course, but somehow all that singular focus of today leaves me wanting.

Where, for example, is the scathing bug-eyed retrospective on the horror that is President 22%?  How about this, network news — can I just get a 10 minute scroll of everything the Bush Administration screwed up to the nth?  You can leave out the minor blunders, the missteps and the global embarrassments, and just stick to tangible damages done.

And where’s the focus on the gigantic collective sigh we are all gearing up for, when 78% of us can finally unclench our jaws and rest with both eyes shut.  Can we please pull down a statue or knock down a wall or something?  Maybe I’m just more invested in the toppling of the Bush Regime because I have to be at the front of the line of people who thought this was a really bad idea the longest.  Hell, there are kids close to puberty who were born after I started saying “I told you so.”

Myself, I haven’t been faithfully watching my Bush Countdown counter because I couldn’t wait for the first African American president, or the first president in half a century to inspire youth, or the first president in as long with small children, or the return of a presidency that could be confused for liberal.  I’d be knocking back a couple cold ones and wearing a shit-eating grin today if just about anyone was being sworn in tomorrow.  (except maybe John McCain)

So, what gives?  Where’s my pound of flesh, CNN?  Where are the survivor stories?  Shouldn’t part of each hour be devoted to interviews of regular Americans talking about how they somehow managed to make it to today, clinging to hope, daring to dream, counting down the days, hours and minutes until the world’s largest elected asshole was off to Texas for good?  Shouldn’t there be a CNN Twitter page titled “How much I loath W?

Come to think of it, can we now ban the use of a single “W” and assume the worst about anyone who uses it, like we do with swastikas?  Can we erase “Crawford, Texas” from all maps to help us forget?  How much do I hate George W Bush?  I’m trying to wrap my mind around that but words fail me.  

I’ve been planning tomorrow in my head for so many years, constructed perfect January 20, 2009s and then tore them up and started over, and nothing ever seemed to do the day justice.    Fireworks?  Shaving my head? A three day drunk?  I’ve got nothing here.

So tomorrow I’ll be going into work.  I’ve been promised we’ll take time out to watch the swearing in and perhaps an hour or so before and after.  Thankfully I’ll be surrounded by folks who hate the chimp as much or more than me.  It won’t be enough, but then, nothing could be.  Nothing legal anyway.  

Anyone out there remember back to when it was still fun to just make fun of him?  

I’m rambling.  I’m incoherent.  It’s over.

Waiting for the Red Cross to show up with a blanket and a cup of something warm.  


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 17 Comments

17 comments

  2. spacemanspiff

    —  but ever since Katrina, CNN and I have been pretty much on the same page as far as George W Asshat was concerned.

    Read the letters I provided for the acronym game out loud …

    Less than a day left!

    Bush GTFO! Pictures, Images and Photos

  3. John Allen

    who just want to put this 8 year nightmare behind them. However, it was not a nightmare, it was a real, catastrophic presidency. The damage that has been done to this country over the last 8 years is incalculable. I’m not even going to try to list any of it. What scares me is what we don’t know. How many things have been done that were hidden from us? How many 10’s, possibly 100’s, of billions of dollars have found their way into someone’s stock portfolio? How many lives have been lost? How many people have died in custody? We know none of these things. We don’t even really know how many American soldiers and marines have died in Iraq. Forgive and forget? Not a chance. I won’t be satisfied until Bush and Cheney share a cell block in Leavenworth. Which means I’ll never be satisfied on this subject.

  4. Jjc2008

    I have the same intense anger toward Reagan and everytime anyone, which sadly includes some dems, praise him as a hero, it is like a thousand nails on a thousand chalkboards.

    Reagan started pushing the destruction of unions, the destruction of public education.  Bush I was unable to complete the task and I thought we got a respite with the Clinton presidency.  Sadly, there were as many elitist dems who hated the “trailer trash” as they implied over and over and stood in his way and did not have his back.  And then they allowed W in, and gave him his way, never stood up to him…….

    how the hell does that work.  The Congress (the dems) declared their independence against a democratic president and then were afraid to stand up to the republican dolt who has destroyed so much.

    NOW, finally, CHANGE.  While Hillary was my first choice, I said from the get go I would support any dem and I did. I gave money to John Edwards as well as to Obama. I am thrilled to witness the history being made when the first person of color takes office (albeit still sad I will probably never see a woman take the oath as president);  

    but even the thrill and excitement cannot get me past the anger I have had toward the apathetic and uninformed who allowed the right wing to have so much power and to eventually put the worst of the worst into office.

    But it is almost over.  

    I will stand and cheer and cry tomorrow and be happy that the real life nightmare has ended.

  6. creamer

     As much as my feelings echo the comments before mine, I must admit I’ve grown tired of being angry and disappointed. I remember Reagan. Hell I remember Nixon. I remember all the things that have happened in my life that didn’t coincide with the “great” nation and people I read about in history books.

    Right now I’m putting all that aside. Tommorow I get to feel good about my country again. I just want to savor the day. Maybe Thursday I’ll be angry again, maybe next week. Maybe I won’t.

  10. Michelle

    It’s surreal because I HATE W so much.  I can’t believe that it is over.  THANK GOD, but it seemed damn near impossible to get here.  I want to run screaming around my streets, especially on the base here, but no one here in Tejas seems to much care.

    So what will I do?  Probably watch, cry, put up my American flag, honk at other cars with Obama stickers, and smile at everyone knowing that tomorrow, we will be a Blue Nation once again.  Time to get back to the business of doing good in the world and taking care of our own.  Now if those damned ‘family values’ could just stay out of the way.

  11. DeniseVelez

    I’ve been enjoying the phone calls this morning.  People are talking about how they survived the Bush years and sharing thoughts on the days ahead – surprisingly the calls coming in on the Republican line have been pretty positive; it’s not just from the Dems and Indies.

    I decided to boycott CNN and MSNBC for the better part of the day, since I don’t think I can stand to hear too many idiotic sidebar remarks.  

  12. anna shane

    was to fuck up so much, commit so many crimes, make so many messes that those who count them up look paranoid, it’s unbelievable, actually.  Fortunately we have scholars working on this stuff, and there will be lots of articles and books coming out, over time.

    If there is rescue in the law, he’ll be prosecuted and/or there will be legal steps taken to make what he did even more illegal.  If possible.  

    i was depressed for months after bush was elected and he was just starting to slip in public opinion when bin laden helped him out.  If I ever believed in God, I would have stopped on the day of 9/11, not because we were again attacked by terrorists, but because we had the great misfortune to have Bush as president at that time.  Of course had he not been president it might not have happened (surely would not have).

    The nation’s reaction to 9/11 was rather horrifying to me, the total lack of perspective, the speech police that made it seem like we were policing ourselves into long-term repression. the freedom fries, the pouring out of French wine, the Dixie Chicks, it was like 1984.  Then I thought free speech was time limited.

    In the run up to war, I emailed Gellespie, the then RNC chair, frequently, and gave him a piece of my mind, and then after we invaded, I kept writing to him, utilizing my free speech (maybe I’ll show up in the ‘recovered’ emails.) Anyway, I kept my own copies, but the fact is I was scared and feared getting on some no fly list or being visited by the FBI.  That’s why I kept doing it, with the hope that there were hundreds of thousands like me, too many to repress.

    Now that’s changed, largely because of bloggers, imo.  The columnists, like Maureen and Frank, got very bold, and in time the cable news services began reporting some truth.  Bill Moyers was great, the last free voice on the moribund public television, so starved by the pugs that it’s become the secular religious channel.  PBS news is so pug dominated that their hacks got equal time with knowledgeable people.

    This has been an eight year horror story and possibly accounts for the great interest the nation took in the dem primary, that knocked bush off the news altogether, so much so that I forgot about him a year ago, except for the fear that he’d give a green light to the Israelis to bomb Iran (saner heads prevailed, and that’s a bullet we didn’t take in the gut).

    So, I’m with you, ding dong the dangerous dweeb is dead.  Long live Barack and HIllary

     

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