Okay, So He Wasn't Perfect. No President Is Ever Perfect. So Stop Criticizing Him For Not Being Perfect, Already!

Karl Rove, "Bush Was Right When It Mattered Most". January 22

THE Times lets us know that some of the Bush43* Jolly Junketeers had their feelings hurt by what they felt was personal criticism of their man in Barack Hussein Obama's inaugural speech. Mr. Rove, apparently, was among them (though that's not what the piece some staffer wrote his Journal column would have you believe). Meaning--do not get ahead of me--that the same administration, some of the same people, and, in fact, its very political architect, who came to power with an orchestrated six-week effort to cover their criminal enterprise--and their criminal incompetence--with a series of personal attacks on their predecessor, leave it with a hissy fit.

It's fitting, yes, and again we ask "why not?" and "who ever deserved it more?"

Which ought to be enough: we're sick of you people; have you not been out in sunlight in the past four years? Just go away. Cheney's found happiness speaking to the twenty-five people in the country who wouldn't rather kill him. You can too. (Karl, maybe you could orchestrate another takeover of the College Republicans! Sounds like fun. Although it still won't get you laid.) If you insist otherwise we can go on like this; at some point you're going to stop commanding whatever interest that now remains, except on FOX, and the real truth will start coming out, at which point you'll wish you'd taken this time to dig fallout shelters.

I remind you Joe Fucking Klein complained about the Vandalgate story, and he might as well have been a member of your administration, and look what it got him. Like the groundhog, only six more weeks of slime. Not a rhetorical denunciation of failed policies at a time of great national anger over what was done in our name, but patently false accusations, planted and fanned in the Press. Oh, of course, the Court-appointed President didn't sully his hands with it; it was just his Press Secretary and Sources in the Administration who Spoke on Condition of Anonymity. Yeah, that fooled us.

So as much as one is tempted to say "Eat it, assholes, and remember it's just the appetizer course," or "Tell it to Max Cleland, Fuckface," and be done with you, the rules are pretty clear, and you wrote them: it's the President's job to say "Nothing to see here, folks"; the rest of us are supposed to keep it alive indefinitely, amid general merriment. So the intrepid blogger follows the link to hear just what The Brain has to say (or whoever wrote it; my own doubts about The Brain's ratiocenations are well established, but if this is an example of his work, and what wowed 'em in the Oval Office for seven years, we're lucky to be getting off with just a few major disasters). Let's climb aboard the Former Air Force One with the other freeloaders, shall we?

The former president and his wife thanked each passenger, showing the thoughtfulness and grace so characteristic of this wonderful American family.

And they smelled like the wild mountain thyme, I suppose. Fuck, aren't we to expect that Bush's days of revealing his true nature in public are finally behind him? Aside from all those inadvertent revelations every time he opens his mouth, I mean? Conversely, are we to expect we'd hear the truth from Karl Rove if they weren't?

Yet, as Mr. Bush left Washington, in a last angry frenzy his critics again distorted his record, maligned his character and repeated untruths about his years in the Oval Office. Nothing they wrote or said changes the essential facts.

Which are exponentially worse than even they know.

To start with, Mr. Bush was right about Iraq.

Well, it's a relief to finally get that settled.

The world is safer without Saddam Hussein in power.

No doubt about it; today the world is a safer place.

And the former president was right to change strategy and surge more U.S. troops.

Complimenting Bush on The Surge is like applauding Karl Wallenda for his final landing. Okay, sure, you keep going with what worked for ya, but look: number one, "The Surge" was not a change in "strategy"; it was not even a change in tactics, the category it properly belongs in. It was a PR cover for doing precisely what we had been doing, while stretching it out until the end of the administration in a worthless bid to save face. We "surged" an additional 15-20,000 troops, to return our troop level to around 150,000, roughly where it had been all along after the opening weeks. But we weren't at 130,000 because of some "strategic" decision; we were there because we've worn out our manpower and matériel. We increased levels, not by employing troops which had been hangin' 'round the PX at Fort Dix, but by increasing the deployment time of troops already in Iraq, and shortening the already insufficient R&R of those who'd come home. If we've pacified (for now) Sunni chieftains by buying them off (which we started doing before The Surge) it merely underlines how completely unprepared we were to face post-war Iraq in 2003, and how idiot ideologies trumped sound practice for years. If the Sunni have driven out foreign elements, well, it goes to show how few there were to begin with, through all that time you were insisting we were fighting al-Qaeda. Finally, and plainly, it's rather easy to say Iraq is on the Mend (there. I just said it.), but what happens in the long term is anyone's guess, and it's not going to have a fucking thing to do with The Surge. Although, if you think things're so great, why not winter there this year? Maybe you and 43 can fly in together, in broad daylight, on a commercial flight. You know, like Ahmadinejad did.

Mr. Bush was right to establish a doctrine that holds those who harbor, train and support terrorists as responsible as the terrorists themselves.

Next stop Pakistan!

These tough decisions -- which became unpopular in certain quarters only when memories of 9/11 began to fade -- kept America safe for seven years and made it possible for Mr. Obama to tell the terrorists on Tuesday "we will defeat you."

First, what made it possible for President Barack Hussein Obama to mouth off to terrorists is the same thing that made it possible for you: chest thumping is rarely fatal, and frequently rewarded.

Second, "in certain quarters"? Where? Who's forgotten 9/11? Same people who were insufficiently overjoyed by Saddam Hussein's capture? You gotta try getting out more, now that you've got some free time. It was your fucking fault. You had every opportunity to set things right, time and time again, and you stayed the course, remember? Who kept fucking with that stupid Color Alert Scale, anyway?

Mr. Bush was right to be a unilateralist when it came to combating AIDS in Africa. While world leaders dithered, his President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief initiative brought lifesaving antiretroviral drugs to millions of Africans.

Okay, two things here: as much as we appreciate the antiretrovirals, tripling aid to Africa while 50% of the increase goes to Abstinence Programs which have no connection whatever to the problem is a unilateral Republican absurdity. Second, it's simply amusing to hear this one touted as Bush's African Legacy (worked on Katie Couric, there Karl; I guess that counts for something); where was it on the campaign trail? It's like you've fallen to #18 on the list. "Never hit anybody with a golf ball".

At home, Mr. Bush cut income taxes for every American who pays taxes. He also cut taxes on capital, investment and savings. The result was 52 months of growth and the strongest economy of any developed country.

Aw, what th' hell? Sure. Nice handling of the economy. Bravo. Tax cuts worked like a charm. I hope every American voter'll remember you for it. And this is the best damn Tootsie Roll I've ever had. Enjoy your time off. May it seem like forever.

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* julia informs us that Bush's Oval Office Note was headed "From 43 to 44"; even worse, we find that Politico's Obama coverage is called Politico44. This faux-jock bonhomie, this reductio ad NASCAR, cannot be allowed to stand, if not for the sake of the Republic, at least out of respect for my lunch.