THE LEGACY; Dubya's Musings in the Halls of Never-Never Land

George W. Bush has been publicly musing again and, like a person whose improvement in handwriting reveals the complete incapacity to spell, Dubya's properly parsed sentences suggest a mind still waiting at the pick-up window of Mickey D's - IE: out to lunch.

In an interview conducted by his own sister, Dorothy Bush Koch, for the oral hsitory organization StoryCorps for the Library of Congress' American Folklife Centre, Bush stated that he'd "like to be a president (known) as somebody who helped liberate 50 million people and helped achieve peace." He further asserted in his own inimitable way, that "I'd like to be a person remembered as a person who, first and foremost, did not sell his soul in order to accomodate the political process."

Sorry for the delay - I had to pick myself up off the floor after losing consciousness from simply typing those words.

He went on: "I came to Washington with a set of values and I'm leaving with the same set of values. And I darm sure wasn't going to sacrifice those values."

And on..." I surrounded myself with good people, I carefully considered the advice of smart, capable people and made tough decisions."

"I think the No Child Left Behind Act is one of the most significant achievements of my administration..."

OK - that's it.  I can't write another word of this crap. I already spent two minutes in the back workshop hitting myself over the head with a rubber mallet to restore higher brain function after that last sentence alone. So let's just look at the No Child's Behind Left Act as a cogent example of his legacy.

In his 2005 budget, Bush eliminated 38 educational programs, while in his previous budget of 2004, rural education programs and drop-out prevention programs were eliminated entirely. No Child Left Behind budgets were also cut. This was particularly egregious considering that the federal share of school funding from kindergarten through grade 12 amounts to only 8%. But even more contemptible is the fact that Bush's No Child Left Behind act gave military recruiters 100% access to all high schools receiving federal funding, including providing the Pentagon with lists of the childrens' addresses and phone numbers. (page 599 of the NCLB Act) Well, you can't keep that war in Eye-Rack going without a draft if the little fartlings are going to go on to college.

I'm not even going to comment on his self-proclaimed "values" or the fact that he also "liberated" approximately 650,000 Iraqi civilians from their burden of life. Let's just make a list of the real Bush legacy that seems to have eluded his memory.

In no particular order, Banana Boy was:

The first president in history to enter office with a criminal record;
Created the biggest annual deficit and national debt in history;
After taking off the entire month of August in 2001, presided over the largest security failure in US history;
Set an all-time record for most vacation days for a sitting president;
Set an all-time historical record for the biggest drop in the stock market;
In his first two years in office managed to have 2 million Americans lose their jobs while simultaneously cutting their unemployment benefits more than any other president;
Set an all-time record for forclosures in a 12 month period before the Fanny-Freddie meltdown;
Set an historical record for appointing convicted criminals to administrative positions;
Set the record for the least number of press conferences of any president since the invention of television;
Signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any president in history;
Presided over the biggest energy crisis in US history and refused to intervene even when corruption was revealed;
Cut healthcare benefits to war veterans;
Dissolved or abrogated more international treaties than any previous president;
Presided over the largest stock market fraud of any nation on earth in history;
First president to have all 50 states of the Union go bankrupt;
First president in history to order the invasion and occupation of a soveriegn nation;
Removed more checks and balances and had the least Congressional oversight of any president in history;
Withdrew from the World Court;
Refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war;
All-time record holder for most corporate campaign donations;
Changed policy to allow convicted criminals to receive US government contracts;
Set the all-time record for the number of members of his administration violating US law for not divesting of huge personal investments in corporations bidding for government contracts;
For 18 months after the 9-11 attacks, prevented public investigation into the biggest intelligence failure in US history;
Inheirited the strongest US economy with the largest budget surplus in history and within less than two years, tanked it all; and 
Osama who?

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