Yesterday evening brought the last speech George W. Bush will ever give as president. I’d forgotten about it until I heard his voice, unusually plaintive, coming from the ceiling of the Cincinnati airport. Gazed up, saw how bad Bush looked, how much less certain and self-possessed he seemed, and wanted to look away. What more was there to hear, anyway? But most everyone in the departure lounge watched. We were a captive audience, so there wasn’t much choice. Plus, maybe there was a little catharsis to wring out of the experience. I also watched people’s faces. They were weary and unsympathetic, as if looking at an incorrigible child. This was even more apparent when a shriek came from behind us. An elderly woman, rushing to make her connection, had twisted her knee and fallen to the ground screaming. In the instant before I turned my head, I saw all the other heads turning, faces that had been staring pitilessly toward the ceiling-mounted TV now suddenly sympathetic and genuinely pained. Here, behind us, was a person worthy of compassion and pity, someone you would rush to help, eyes watering with reflexive empathy. There, on the ceiling screen, was a man you would watch if you had to, and then happily leave to his pain and his fate.
But back to the task at hand. Here is the beginning of the circle that closed last night. It’s the first speech George W. Bush ever gave as president, delivered almost exactly eight years ago. One relevant portion:
While many of our citizens prosper, others doubt the promise, even the justice, of our own country. The ambitions of some Americans are limited by failing schools and hidden prejudice and the circumstances of their birth. And sometimes our differences run so deep, it seems we share a continent, but not a country.
We do not accept this, and we will not allow it. Our unity, our union, is the serious work of leaders and citizens in every generation. And this is my solemn pledge: I will work to build a single nation of justice and opportunity.
We all know how that turned out. Video of the speech is here, on the off-chance that anyone wants to re-live it.
sorry, I watched the Real President give an interview on CNN instead.
OMG how fun that was! Someone you can actually trust who doesn’t spend all the time lying to you like Comrade Bush does …
In other words: “Hey, some of you got rich! The rest of you… I dunno, maybe it’s not totally your fault? Were cool though, right?”
For once, I like a typo, because I scanned that quickly and read “a frightened sheik came from behind us.”
I can’t think of a single thing Bush did that I approve of. Not one thing. There must be something?
Now that Democrips are President and all of Congress, what are all the cool hip sardonic people of SLOG going to do? Sit around all day and say “yeah, team”?
Face it, Rebloodicans are the new Underground.
We say things using words which you understand no more than a middle aged parent does his teen’s txt msgs.
Wait, assuming he steps down on 1/20 that’s one thing he will do that I approve of, @4.
But that’s about all.
#4 – He did triple U.S. aid to Africa, with much of the focus of the money on AIDS prevention. That’s all I got. I’m sure there’s some fine print in there somewhere that’d piss me off, too.
@7 – That AIDS prevention money to Africa would have been awesome if it hadn’t been tied to abstinence education and a prohibition on condom distribution or use. As it is, the AIDS prevention money the lame duck sent to Africa was a purely ideological instance of political masturbation.
And he was a friend to gun owners. OK, thats aboot it, as the Canucks would say.
@4: and he pushed back Daylight Savings Time by a month, so it’s lighter later until November.
So… did you help the woman? Did anyone help her? Or did you just watch piteously?
@4 He made that park in Hawaii.
@8 has it right. While W is lauded for the massive increase in PEPFAR funding (and it was a significant increase), something like two-thirds goes to care and the rest for prevention.
As cruel as it is to say, those ratios should be reversed at the least.
And, as Calpete notes, much of the prevention money that did go out might as well have been flushed down the toilet as it went to faith based organizations and emphasized abstinence only.
And, of course, there is the ongoing prohibition of using federal funds for syringe exchange. Although not as big a deal in Africa as in eastern Europe, preventing federal funds from being used for the single most effective means of HIV prevention is criminal.
What happened to the lady with the twisted knee?
When I commented, I knew that Bush had sent a lot of cash to Africa and they love him there. But I also knew that it was all tied to abstinence only sex ed (which is pointless) so I couldn’t, in good faith, list that as something good that he did.
see you, auntie.