Will GWB turn out to be the worst president ever?

If you want to read a more learned discourse by Sean Wilentz on the merits of placing George W. Bush at the very bottom (i.e., worst of all!) of the list of presidents from best to worst, the Rolling Stones article of this past April is for you. Of course, it will miss some of the more recent shenanigans with both our liberties at home and the colossal messes we are making around the world, particularly in Iraq.

But, for an up-to-date listing of my own not-so-briefly stated reasons why GWB beats all of the other contenders (Buchanan, Nixon, Grant, etc.),… read on.

1. If I had to put one reason ahead of all of the others, it is his (GWB's) almost uncanny ability to wage war and rebuild nations which we have "broken." He managed to invade a country with too few troops to hold what was gained in the first few hours for ...… little more than a few more hours. Then, he followed that up with an inappropriate photo-op on an aircraft carrier that has come to epitomize his war-winning abilities ...… mission accomplished! And oh yes, did I mention that he either lied or misread the tea leaves with 100% inaccuracy to get us into Iraq (the worst of his foreign adventures) in the first place?

2. Second to that, and possibly a sub-heading were this not a simple blog posting, I'd have to add his lack of support for the troops that he claims to support. From failing to properly provide body armor to the occupants of the humvees to fanning out the (too few) occupation forces in as thin a manner possible in the face of a growing insurgency ...…made worse by the fact that we didn't follow up the killing of thousands of civilians during the day and night of "Shock and Awe" with the necessary efforts to "win the hearts and minds ..." The unnecessary sieges of one after another city in the "new and free" Iraq ... sieges that have been immortalized by pictures of women and children in pieces ... have to make this a second separate item, I think.

3. Leaving his failed foreign adventures for the moment, I have to list as high as possible ...… short of the first two, Mr. Bush's total disregard for the Constitution (in particular, the Bill of Rights) and many other domestic and international laws. Yeh, we are all familiar with warrantless searches and wiretaps, illegal detention of still-undefined "enemy combatants," the torture policies whose results made headlines worldwide and the more recent elimination of even our writ of habeas corpus protections ...… but so many of us -- including myself -- had almost forgotten the last-minute modifications to the Patriot Act which were "absolutely necessary" for the safety of all Americans ... especially our children. Future generations will spend decades trying to undo the harm done to our revered Bill of Rights and such international laws/agreements as the Geneva Conventions. I don't know whether the appointment of God-only-knows-how-many federal judges who will make it even harder for future lawmakers to undo the damage should be a separate reason, but I'll just lump it here under Reason #3. Our files at the local libraries may "belong" to the FBI for a century or more.

4. "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer," or so the old saw goes. But Mr. Bush's major domestic damage was probably embodied in his immoral "tax cuts" that went largely to the upper 2% (or less) of the American wage earners. Hmmm ...…take that back ... I mean "wealth accumulators," don't I? The big winners haven't actually "earned" a wage in years, if ever. At least this one won't require a Constitutional Amendment to undo.

5. Right in line with #4 is the drop in per-capita median wage ... made possible by fewer full-time (salaried and hourly) workers together with the shipping of many higher wage jobs overseas where the work could be done by highly skilled workers at below (American) minimum hourly wages and salaries. I consider myself a fairly skilled worker who has been quite willing to work for anything at all ... just to eat and feed my cats. Yes, the "average wage" has gone up, but the median better measures the sadness of those working only part-time or the burdens of multi-children families with both parents working to make ends meet.

6. The stock market is riding high. Huh? Why in the world does Mediawingnuts list that in reasons why GWB should be regarded as the worst president ever? The answer is simple ... it's called CREDIT!! Yeh, the record federal deficit is part of this one, but the "credit crunch" that we feel today is much closer to home. Our credit card debt (Americans and businesses individually) is at record highs. That's the #1 reason that the DOW Industrial Average (stock prices for those of you from outside of the US) is reaching for the stars.

7. Probably as a result of all of the above ... and more ... we are now looked down on as an inferior country ... morally, ethically, image-wise! The statistics from worldwide polls are backed up by the statements of the leaders in all but our staunchest "allies," like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and (possibly) Israel. Nixon's lies and Clinton's cloak-room antics haven't done anything near what the treatment of prisoners in Asia, the bombing of civilians unnecessarily, and the turning of our once highly regarded Constitution's Bill of Rights inside-out have done around the world. Where once our President could stand tall in Berlin and say to the Soviet Union, "take this wall down!" we are now in the process of walling ourselves in.

8. I'll leave hypocrisy, cronyism and the fears felt by the very persons who should have utmost respect for their leaders to fall to here. After all, a lot of that/those problems are a part of the neocon culture and not an internal part of GWB's make-up. The firing of our highest ranked and most knowledgeable military leaders who only wanted to warn the president or his Secretary of Defense that this or that policy might not be best was really brought home in the latest tell-all book by Bob Woodward. The cronyism is epitomized by the antics and behavior of Republicans from top to bottom. The "Foley affair" will soon be forgotten, but the system of cronyism and the power of lobbies (the beltway bandits) will be with us long after GWB has departed the scene.

9. There are a few more, not the least being the unwillingness to come clean with the American people about all of the unanswered questions vis-Ã-vis 9/11 or the shabby treatment given to some of his own and his father's most trusted and loyal followers (e.g., Colin Powell). And what has the President done to the reputation of the political party of Abraham Lincoln and "Ike" Eisenhower? Yeesh! The list could go on and on and on ...

But hey, we've still a couple of years left in the man's presidency! And wasn't it it GWB who said something along the lines of "history will only really judge us after we're dead!" ... or something like that. And to some, his Bushisms are a plus ... I, for one, think they add to the man's image. I'll never forget his rendition of "Fool me once, it's your fault; fool me twice and it's my fault." His version is still one of the funniest lines played regularly on our radios here in America ... second only to his statement about bin Laden being irrelevant. It went something like, "bin Laden? I don't really think much about him any more ..."

I suggested to my brother that he change the name of his blog from Rummy Watch to Dummy Watch, thus giving it the legs of a centipede and not just a two-year lease on life. Whaddya think?

After all, we'll have dummies around till the Second Coming of Christ, but there will only be one ...