Now I know how those ungrateful Iraqis feel.

she'd give "some" of the policy "an A-plus.

Her example for this was that the US was well regarded in China and India. However, the Pew Poll she was asked about showed only 41% favorability for China. Only 30% had confidence in the Bush Administration.

As for India, I am less than interested in the opinion of the guy I spend three hours talking to everytime I need help installing a program or getting a phone bill corrected.

The nightmare will be never be erased or cleansed. Bush mattered ... badly enough to prematurely usher in the long emergency.

So who does the WH send out to defend the nitwit? His wife and an otherwise invisable Secretary of State. Where was Karen Hughes? Or did they think 2 skirts were enough to cower behind?

We will thank Bush for making the wealthiest people richer; for causing a recession with “trickle down economics”; for wasting billions $ in Iraq war; for giving billions more to the war profiteers , Haliburton and its subcontractors; for the dead and wounded military, for allowing the New Orleans debacle by cutting core of engineers funds and neglect while it was happening; for allowing national parks and our ecology to be fouled; for putting us in peril by banning stem cell research, and much more!

Somehow, I don't think the the actual historical judgments will be made by family or the political incompetents that made up his equally criminal and incompetent coterie

calvin seems to recall similar statements made on behalf of Hitler by his hangers-on and sycophants in the Berlin bunker in 1945.

"In his latest book Bob Woodward quotes you saying, 'we should've liberated Iraq, I'd do it a thousand times again.' Would you really?" Braver asked.

"Absolutely. Because I know that the Middle East with Saddam Hussein in its center was never gonna be a Middle East that was going to change in a way that will sustain American interests, values and security."

So now we've got a Middle East with Iran as its center, and Iraq as a satellite rather than a counterweight. Great geopolitics there.

And of course, Iraq's not exactly a democracy. It seems to be headed towards Maliki being the new strongman, just not as bad as the old strongman.

And its infrastructure is shot - not only is electricity often scarce, but so is clean water. And unemployment is rampant.

Not to mention the hundreds of thousands dead and maimed, and the millions exiled. So this hasn't exactly worked out well for the people of Iraq.

So if the war hasn't exactly been a win for the people of Iraq, and hasn't been a big geopolitical plus for us, then it continues to appear that Iran was the big winner of this war.

I'd give that an F.

Its nice to see Bush being defended by his wives. His master, Cheney, was also out there pointing to Bush and what a great job he's done.

Now all president Obama has to do is recind that little executive order that keeps us from seeing the damage the conservative wing of the Republican party has done to the country and we can start the civil and criminal proceedings.

"this administration has been concentrating solely on "lay[ing] a foundation for history's judgment,"

ummm. . . shouldn't they have been doing something, anything, to help USians NOW?

the best they can hope for is to end up among history's inept clowns instead of history's villains.

Why can't they be both? They've always seemed like inept, villainous clowns to me.

We should all wait to judge him. Preferably until the statue of limitations expires on his war crimes and gross embezzlement of taxpayers funds.

There is a part of me that is thankful and can see some of the good that President Bush has done for America. His administration managed to create the conditions, domestically, whereby America overwhelmingly elected Barack Obama and could have elected Hillary Clinton--something I thought was still at least a generation away. Even if America was always ready to do so (and I'm starting to suspect I was indeed wrong about the timeline), more importantly Bush created the conditions whereby a massive majority of Democrats felt that Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton could win the election. I think we would have heard a lot more "Now, I'm not saying I'm racist/sexist, I'm just saying that there are a lot of other people who are and maybe if we want to win - and we do - we should just... you know... pick the least unappealing white guy."

If Bush hadn’t overachieved at screwing up so much, I’m not convinced that the situation would have been conducive to the Democratic Party making that final step. So, the Bush administration’s decision to not be one act shy of total incompetence and maintain its rigid purity in the face of all reason and rational thought, is one I will take as a silver lining. Perhaps it is telling that I think the great accomplishment of the Bush administration is in the unintended consequences of its incompetence, but there it is.

By any measure Bush's administration has been a HUGE success.
Now, can I have more of that Kool-aid?

"borders on delusional"

Ain't no borders here dude...

The joke that I was telling others 6 years ago:
What do you call someone who cannot tell reality from delusion? Answer: Mr. President

I expect 'History' will be written the next time a Republican is elected President (or the time after that if the next Republican president doesn't come from the Bushite wing of the party). Until then his dwindling supporters will deny that the critisms written about Boy George II are valid 'History'.

Of course, BGII has so detroyed the reputation of their party that he may in fact not live to see his vindication/whitewashing.

he has delivered policies that are going to stand the test of time

Ms Rice, you say that as though it were a good thing. Yes, what he has enacted is going to affect us for generations. I have a feeling that we aren't even seeing the half of it, yet.

The Bush clan is probably right. Russia just voted Stalin the 3rd best Russian in history.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7802485.stm

Hey - history called her "Catherine THE GREAT", didn't they?

You just wait - they'll call W, "King George the IV".

Eventually.
/snark

All this spin of how Bush has kept us safe since 9/11 belies the fact he and his security/intelligence team could have done more to prevent 9/11 - and this is what I think historians of the future will focus upon! Bush's vacation in Crawford TX came first in August of 2001, not the urgency of the NIE!

Yes, as we have found out over the last 8 years that Mr. Bush and his WH have given us a crock-o-shit, so too will our great-great grand children come to know him! -Kevo

Aren't they the ones that relied, heavily, on our short term "what have you done for me lately" attitude? And now they want that we think long term?

How's that 401K doing now? They could ask that question 10 years from now. For most, the prospects might be back to "normal".

Clowns.

From today's WaPo:
"OSHA Less Active Under Bush
Career officials say agency bowed to industry pressure on many workplace health regulations."

Every where one looks, every day in the news are examples of the failures, ineptitude, and corruption of the Bush 2 Administration. He's got a lock on "worst ever": history will simply confirm that judgment.

P.S. And Condi's seriously in the running for one of the lousiest Sec. of States ever. Want proof? Just look at what's going on in Gaza, or Africa, or Iraq ...

Yeah, maybe soon there'll be a Nobel Prize for fucking up.

Not so much "You'll see" as "You'll forget". At the end of Reagan's administration, everybody rested easy because they knew that the caregivers were making sure that all the sharp things were well out of reach.
Today, of course, we all know that he tore down the USSR with his own hands, and invented sunlight.

Perhaps the best way to prove a man's utter failure is to trot out his wife to inform the world that, "my husband is not a failure!!! Really, he isn't!!!"

This whole new whitewash campaign is nothing more than the administration remaining consistent in denial of reality. They believed they could deny reality entirely for eight years and they were correct. Now they believe they can tell us what we'll remember and what we'll forget.

The Bush Administration says the shoe throwing incident will be forgotten, but the reality is that about 90% of the world population would like to throw a shoe themselves.

Indeed, wishful thinking about history's judgment, in the midst of widespread failures in every aspect of government -- foreign policy, economic policy, constitutional policy, domestic policy, environmental policy -- borders on delusional.

They are just dealing with the death of their dreams of glory. Denial is the first stage of that process.

I don't know why people are always complaining about the incompetence of the Bush administration. Just think how much more damage they would have done to America if they'd only known how.

Ah, where's a good pair of size 11 loafers when you need one?

-Z

SHORTER BUSH REGIME: we may have effed everything up, but eventually things will work out after we're gone.
.

Right now, Bush supporters' only hope is to continue their war on public education to the degree that in a few years, most schools won't even be able to afford to teach history and any objective knowledge of the Bush years will gradually slip beneath a veil of sweet oblivion leaving only homeschooled kids weened on conservative talk radio to propagate the idea that the early 2000's were an unrivaled golden age of peace and prosperity.

It seems to be headed towards Maliki being the new strongman, just not as bad as the old strongman.

Well, not yet, anyway. I have a feeling that a decade or two from now we're going to yet again be in the position of getting rid of our former good buddy who no one would have predicted would become a ruthless dictator once we handed him unlimited power.

Rice's exact words: "I think generations pretty soon are going to start to thank this president for what he's done."

Anyone have a clue as to how the fuck long "generations pretty soon" is?

Bush and his henchmen seem to think that just blabbering out words somehow creates meaningful sentences.

I don't know. There is a segment in our society that lionizes Hitler so much that they name their kids after him and get swastikas tatooed on their chests.

I can see perhaps 40 years from now some folks believing that Bush and Cheney were some sort of heroes for killin' up all them eyerackeys and eyerainians.

If there's ANY plus to the reign of D+ Augustus...

it will be that it got people involved in politics again. That Americans stopped taking their Constitutional rights for granted. That Americans started taking responsibility for their own government, rather than labelling it the enemy. That a new generation of young people were inspired. That American foreign and military policy finally got the examination and debate that had been taboo for so many years of lapel-pin patriotism.

In other words, that Mr. Bush's disastrous term of office led to a revitalizing backlash. Frankly, that's the only "positive" that I can imagine might come out of the Bush years.

mr. shortstop and I once had dinner in a restaurant with an amazingly obnoxious waiter. Long story short, we stayed and finished our dinner because we were ravenous, but many other folks would have gotten up and walked out. When the check came, the waiter presented me with a rose and a little fake obsequiousness in a vain attempt to salvage his tip.

Condi's just frantically passing out roses instead of shutting the fuck up in mortal shame like any normal person would do in her place.

I wonder if Presidents Herbert Hoover, Andrew Johnson or James Buchanan were every reconciled to their utter failure in office? I'd be surprised if they were.

Bush seems to have combined the corruption of the Warren Harding administration with the economic incompetence of Herbert Hoover and added his own incompetence, intellectual laziness and indifference to governing to the mix.

Look at his choice of spokespersons. Laura's poor judgment is clear when you look at who she married. Has she ever accomplished anything other than sleeping with and marrying a rich drug and alcohol using playboy? Condi Rice's incompetence was established by her total failure as National Security Adviser to coordinate the various agencies in the Iraq invasion and the ensuing occupation. She has added to that a complete lack of accomplishment as Secretary of State. But they are trying to wind up the right-wing Wurlitzer, and possibly could succeed. It worked for Reagan, who had more of his officials convicted of felonies than any other administration.

I doubt that Karen Hughes would be much of a spokesperson to historians for Bush either. She's another example of how everyone associate with this administration has left with their reputation badly damaged, like Gonzo and Colin Powell.

she'd give "some" of the policy "an A-plus."

I would truly hate to see what an "F" from Condi Rice looks like.

so what did you expect her to say?

"We fucked up royally!"?

unless we have a war crimes commission, these people will never be held accountable.

also, what would you expect from the worst sec. state ever?

The WH will shred all documents that show it in anything but the most favorable light. History will judge the shrub by firsthand contemporary accounts and by the archives of other countries. That doesn't bode well for them.

This president virtually guaranteed the "tougher circumstances" that he's had to face, by inviting them.