Juxtaposition: Bush, Obama, Gitmo, and the so-called War on Terror

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Bush held his final press conference today and was, according to the easygoing NYT, "by turns impassioned and defiant, reflective and light-hearted." Surely, though, few people were paying attention to this last gasp of a failure of a president, so eager are so many to see him go, with Obama the de facto president ahead of his inauguration, set to undo so much of the failure of his predecessor.

But Bush was indeed defiant, or rather self-defensive. He may have "confessed a litany of mistakes," and he may have "cautioned Republicans to be inclusive," a caution they will surely ignore, but he stuck to his egotistical guns when it came to "the decision [he has] made to protect the homeland," that is to his so-called War on Terror:

All these debates will matter not if there is another attack on the homeland. The question won't be, you know, 'Were you critical of this plan or not?' The question will be, 'Why didn't you do something?'

Like what, invade yet another country or torture yet more evildoers, suspected or otherwise? For Bush, you see, hasn't learned a thing, it would seem. To him, which seems to be all that matters, he did right the defend America the way he did, no questions allowed. I agree that another attack akin to, or worse than, 9/11 would be, to put it mildly, an overwhelming development, but how is it that these debates don't matter? Debates over the Iraq War, over torture, over electronic surveillance, over Abu Ghraib and Gitmo. Is anything and everything permissible for the sake of the protection of the Homeland?

Sorry, soon-to-be ex-president, but the debates do matter and, thankfully, there are people who obviously care far more than you do about America who are asking the right questions and probing into the depths of darkness that defined your presidency.

Thankfully, too, there is your successor. He will likely balk at doing what ought to be done, namely, prosecuting the evildoers in your administration, but at the very least, the very least, he will close Gitmo, one of the symbols, and still an active one, of your wretchedness, hopefully sooner rather than later, and America and the world will be better for it, one of the first steps towards resurrecting America's moral standing and credibility.

Bush may be defiant, and he may always be so, but he has done so much harm as president, and yet he doesn't seem to have much of a clue as to any of it, so divorced is he from his own reality, from the reality of his making, from the reality outside his bubble, from the consequences of his actions. There hasn't been another huge attack on the Homeland, even if there have been attacks elsewhere, but America is now weaker and the world is now more dangerous because of him.

And we will soon, at long last, be rid of him.