"I'm the commander in chief, see, I don't need to explain, I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting part about being president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." - George W. Bush ... quoted in "BUSH AT WAR" by Bob Woodward
Not only will posterity record George W. Bush as the worst president in America's history it will number him among the worlds most pernicious despots. Space here does not permit an exhaustive listing of the multiple disasters he has visited upon the country and the world; but here are a few examples.
On the economic front he inherited a thriving economy with the government budget in surplus and utterly destroyed it - driving the economy into the worst downturn since the 1930s and turning the surplus into record deficits In eight years he doubled the debt accumulated since the founding of the country. His latest raid on the treasury was to turn over nearly a trillion dollars, NO QUESTIONS ASKED, to his wealthy supporters in the investment banking community.
Internationally he has made America, once the most admired nation on earth, the most hated and mistrusted. By invading and occupying Iraq, a country that was no threat to us or anyone else, he violated international laws against aggressive war and killed over a million innocent Iraqis. This alone brands him as a war criminal, but he has compounded the offense by authorizing the torture of captives, many of whom were innocent civilians turned over for cash by mercenary neighbors.
He has compromised national security by approving the disclosure of the identity of a covert CIA agent (Valerie Plame Wilson), a crime punishable by the death penalty under federal law. Anyone who believes that the conviction of Scooter Libby for lying to investigators was the whole extent of the story is a fool! The Bush administration has been the most secretive in history, operating almost entirely in the shadows; ignoring subpoenas for testimony and documents that would expose criminal conduct at the very highest level and the Valerie Plame Wilson imbroglio is no exception.
Domestically he has authorized spying on citizens and legal resident aliens without a court order; the constitution permits such operations only when authorized by a court. He has approved of the kidnaping and transferring of people to foreign countries where they've been tortured - a process they euphemistically call "extraordinary rendition"!
At Guantanamo he has held hundreds of people captive for years without being charged with any crime and denied them access to legal council. All of this in clear violation of the constitution - which he himself characterized as "just a God-d*** piece of paper"!
Since the feckless congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, has refused to exercise its constitutionally mandated role of executive oversight and taken impeachment "off the table" (thanks for nothing Nancy Pelosi!) it is necessary for the new attorney general to assign federal prosecutors to convene a grand jury to determine what charges Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales and others will be tried for. If, as is likely, Bush is shameless enough to try to preemptively pardon himself and everyone else in his administration then the legitimacy of those pardons must be challenged in the Supreme Court. Democracy cannot survive for long if its leaders are not subject to the laws of the land. It is my fervent hope that President Obama will take the oath he swears to seriously and that he will "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States". Any meaningful interpretation of this oath will require that Bush and the band of criminals making up his administration be brought before the bar of justice.
"The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men" - Plato
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