Karmic if Will

With just days left in his Presidential term, George W. Bush faced the press in the White House this morning.

The result was a bizzare spectacle. That of a mediocre man, who - eight years prior - had been catapulted into an office completely above his abilities, by a political party concerned only with taking power via any means available.

Radicals at the core of the Republican party used his bumpkin appeal, his family name and his genuinely simple-minded view of the world, to successfully manipulate a large and apparently clueless portion of the American electorate. Bush himself probably didn't realize what an empty suit he was viewed as, when he was given the office of the Presidency eight years ago. It may have dawned on him recently.

But the man speaking to the press today still - stubbornly and against the weight of reality - refuses to consciously fathom the profound depth of his incompetence.

Yet there seems an unconscious realization - unable to remain hidden, even from this simple mind - that he has failed at everything.

One senses pain . . . and shame . . . under the surface of this 62-year-old man's childish mannerisms.

One senses that in his heart-of-hearts he knows that his negligence likely allowed the attacks of 9/11/2001 to be carried out, rather than contained. One knows that he knows that he took a noble nation to war based upon propaganda that even he must now realize was absurd. Even the dumbest fool now understands that hundreds of thousands of people - innocent people - were killed and maimed and hurt, on a misguided and seemingly cavalier whim.

We see in our President a genuinely fearful person. Afraid - still - of cave-dwelling boogie men who "want to attack the homeland." He is so terrorized by this truth, that one wonders if he only discovered it after 9/11/2001. . . because it was there for any reasonably aware person to know long before that day. Any person qualified to be President should have known.

But that is the ultimate point . . . so evident in every day of his Presidency. This man is not of the caliber required in a President. Let's hope that even the simple-minded among us now know that. Let's hope that even the simple-minded among us are just a little smarter after these long eight years . . .

George W. Bush, on behalf of this great nation . . . Ciao baby!
It can't come soon enough.