http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2006/07/07/notes070706.DTL


George W. Bush Is Dead To Me
Nation cringes as the worst president ever continues long, painful slog
to the end
- By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, July 7, 2006

It is like some sort of virus. It is like some sort of weird and
painful rash on your face that makes you embarrassed to walk out the
door and so you sit there day after day, waiting for it to go away,
slathering on ointment and Bactine and scotch. And yet still it
lingers.

Some days the pain is so searing and hot you want to cut off your own
head with a nail file. Other days it is numb and pain-free and
seemingly OK, to the point where you think it might finally be all gone
and you allow yourself a hint of a whisper of a positive feeling, right
up until you look in the mirror, and scream.

George W. Bush is just like that.

Everyone I know has had enough. Everyone I know is just about done.
There is this threshold of happy deadened disgust, this point where the
body simply resigns itself to the pain, a point where the disease, the
poison has seeped so deeply into the bones that you just have to laugh
and shrug it all off and go for a drink. Or 10.

I was having cocktails recently with a group of people, among whom were
two lifetime Republicans, each in his 60s, corporate businessmen, one
admittedly slightly more moderate than the other (to the point where,
after once hearing a senator read off a long list of Bush's hideous
environmental atrocities, actually let his conscience lead his choice
and ended up voting for Kerry) but nevertheless both devoted members of
the party.

Bush came up, as a topic, as a cancer, as a fetid miasma in the air.
They were both shaking their heads. They were sighing heavily. They
were both, in a word, disgusted. The more staunchly conservative of the
two even went so far as to say he was so embarrassed and humiliated by
this president, by this administration, so appalled at all the war
atrocities and the wiretapping and the misuse of law, the fiscal
irresponsibility and the abuse of the lower classes and the outright
arrogance, that if the Dems could somehow produce a decent moderate
candidate with a brain, he'd have zero problem switching allegiances
and voting for him. Or her.

It may not sound like much. It may not seem like a major shift. But it
is, in its way, sort of massive. For thoughtful Repubs with a
conscience (they actually exist, I have seen them), there is little
left to defend. There is little this administration has done among all
categories of ostensible GOP values that they can look to with any sort
of pride. Medicare? Shrinking the budget? Smaller government? Less
intervention in our lives? Reduced spending? Increased respect in the
international community? Responsible international citizen? Ha. Name
your topic, BushCo has failed. Spectacularly. Intentionally.

Indeed, countless Dems were disappointed with Clinton's behavior during
Monicagate. Many were ashamed that he would cheapen the office so badly
by such trashy moral behavior.

But that was just a cheap little affair (our allies never understood
all the fuss anyway). This was never the attitude toward Clinton's
politics, his capacity to understand complex issues, his astounding
political savvy. No one anywhere doubted he made the country richer,
more environmentally conscious, more stable, more respected and
admired. Clinton was globally adored not only for his charisma but for
his contributions to world peace. Plus he could actually point to
Afghanistan on a map.

What a difference a handful of years makes. Now, overseas, we are a
joke. A threat. A toxin. We are considered reckless and arrogant and
ignorant, dangerous not just to the rest of the world but to the
overall health of the planet. No one anywhere understands how a man
like Bush can be the leader of the Free World, stolen election or no.

Sure, smarter Europeans know full well that the United States is deeply
divided between the pseudo-religious right-wing warmongers who control
a tiny cadre of the powerful elite, and, well, everyone else. It does
not matter. America's reputation as a powerful and respected diplomatic
peacekeeper, as the nation that sets the standards for human rights and
economic freedom and choice, is hobbled. Crippled. Is very nearly dead.
How quickly can we recover? How much damage has been done? History will
tell, and it will be ugly indeed.

Interesting feature interview with Al Gore in Rolling Stone recently.
Gore mentions two amazing things: one is the discussion he's had with
generals regarding Iraq, with one coming right out and admitting that
Bush's disastrous Iraq war will go down as the worst invasion in
American history, our greatest misstep, our most costly and
debilitating mistake. Among top brass in the know, of this there is
little question.

The other was about the discussions Gore's had with various major
corporate CEOs about Gore's pet issue, global warming, and how obvious
it is that 15 minutes after BushCo leaves office, we will have a
radically new global warming policy. In other words, Bush won't do a
thing about it in the next two years, despite how obvious it shall
become that we are in crisis, simply because he can't risk finally
coming out and admitting yet another enormous policy disaster. Not to
mention how nearly six years of enviro policy abuse, from air quality
to water to forestry to pollution deregulation on all his industrial
pals, can't be undone with a smirk and a prayer.

Which is just another way of saying we are currently stuck. We are
swirling around the bottom of the drain, clinging on to anything that
might hold us from going under for just a little while longer. We have
to let the neocon disease run its course, and just pray that at the end
of it all the scarring and the pain and damage will not be so
permanent, and so hideous, that we can't be seen in public for a
decade.

This is where it stands: Bush can in no way risk alienating the
ultra-right-wing bonk-job contingent that put him in office (they are,
considering Bush's 32-percent approval rating, the only ones left even
remotely supporting him -- even though, according to many estimates,
they're starting to abandon him, too), and hence all policy and all
agenda items from here on out will be even more vicious and desperate
in an attempt to shore up the base. Hence trying to mutilate the
Constitution to ban gay marriage. Hence attacking the New York Times
and claiming newspapers are endangering American lives.

In other words, Bush's latest nasty, Rove-designed salvos and upcoming
attacks to save a sliver of power and pride and sneering GOP control
are just the beginning.

However -- praise Jesus and pass the scotch -- they are the beginning
of the end.

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