Misty water-color memories

By Mustang Bobby

If you thought it was nice that all five living former and the current president got together yesterday to dedicate the George W. Bush Presidential Center, and you thought it was magnanimous of men like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama to say nice things about him, well, I’m not going to pee on your campfire. Let him have his moment in the sun and all that; he’s out of office and can’t do us anymore harm except to continue to assault the English language.

Conservatives accused Democrats and liberals of hating him blindly, of never giving him the chance to prove that he’s not evil incarnate. (Ironically, a lot of conservatives have done the exact same thing to Barack Obama, so I guess they know what they’re talking about.)

Personally I never hated George W. Bush. That would mean I actually cared about him. But I could never muster the energy to actually give a shit about him as a person. His policies and his methods of governing and the things done in his name are another matter. And so while I never made it personal, and I don’t really care about his museum or the attempt by his minions to polish up the turd that was his administration, I do remember the reasons that I counted down the days until he was out of office and back in Texas where the worst thing he could do to the sensibilities of the world was to launch an attack on the art world with his new-found toy: a paint brush.

If you need a reminder of what it was like, Steven Rosenfeld at Jezebel has compiled a concise list of the 50 reasons a lot of people despised the presidency of George W. Bush. Some are little, but most of them are harsh reminders that while it’s fine to let him have his little museum, it is a monument to abject failure.

Actually, the real monument to his legacy are the rows of white marble stones in Arlington National Cemetery and the other graveyards around the country where young men and women now lie because of his lies. Paint that, Mr. Bush.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)