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December 12, 2007
The "Bush Effect" Revisited (Better Hope Santa Doesn't See This List.)
By Mary Lyon
Since we're close to Christmas, 2007, I decided a look back was in order. Most people at this time have made a list to leave for whichever Santa they believe in. My list, below, is a little different, but as long as this is list-making season, well, why not? Besides, now that Campaign 2008 is practically all we hear about in the news anymore, we're also well into the season of reassessing, and (for some) obsessing over, the George W. Bush legacy. My list is a compilation of mostly naughty, hardly what you'd consider nice things Junior has touched, and mishandled. In some cases, it's comical, other cases utterly tragic, some irreparably so, during the last seven years of his life in Washington, DC. It's by NO means complete (feel free to add your own items), but hey, it's filled with people, places, things, groups, and concepts well worth remembering. They will NEVER be quite the same again. So here goes.
THINGS BUSH AND THE REPUBLI-CON PARTY HAVE RUINED, INJURED, INSULTED, OR SOMEHOW COMPROMISED, directly OR indirectly:
The truth
America as we knew it
The Constitution of the United States of America
The Congressional Page Program
The presidency
The moral high ground
The presidential oath of office
An independent press
Accountability in government
Republican Redistricting in Texas
Everyone in Congress who voted for the IWR and the Patriot Act
The Republican Party
The State of the Union speech
The Democratic Party
The Republican Party
The Bible
The Methodist Church
The Southern Baptists
The evangelical movement
The American Enterprise Institute, Cato Institute, Federalist Society, et al
The CIA
The FBI
Executive privilege
The Presidential Daily Brief
George Herbert Walker Bush
The Bush "family franchise" - its "entitlement" to the White House
Going to Rehab
Tom Delay
Bob Ney
Mark Foley
Tom Reynolds
Don Sherwood
"Mean" Jean Schmidt
Dennis Hastert
John Boehner
Mitch McConnell
Jack Abramoff
Roger Ailes
Bill O'Reilly
The "War on Christmas"
Randy "Duke" Cunningham
Conrad Burns
Larry Craig
Men's airport bathrooms
Harold Ford
Bill Clinton
Hillary Clinton
Ed Gillespie
Ari Fleischer
Scott McClellan
Jeff Gannon
Talon News
Iraq
Afghanistan
"Scooter" Libby
Douglas Feith
Harvey Pitt
Brent Scowcroft
Richard Clarke
The SEC
Colin Powell
Michael Powell
The city of New Orleans
Michael "Brownie" Brown
FEMA
The Department of Homeland Security
Michael Chertoff
The Houston Astrodome
The World Trade Center
The federal budget
The dollar
American image abroad
The Dixie Chicks
Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, and other celebrity "surrender monkeys"
The "Jersey Girls" - 9/11 widows
Toby Keith
Pat Tillman
Pat Tillman's grieving family
Judy Miller
Matt Cooper
Patrick Fitzgerald
The New York Times
The Washington Post
The Los Angeles Times
Bob Woodward
John Kerry
John Edwards
Disney/ABC TV
ClearChannel Communications
Bernie Kerik
Christie Todd Whitman
Sandra Day O'Connor
John G. Roberts
Samuel Alito
Dan Rather
Mary Mapes
CBS News
"60 Minutes"
The Purple Heart
Cindy Sheehan
Nearly four-thousand American soldiers and their grieving families (and that's strictly battlefield death toll - NOT including serious injury, PTSD, and deaths and suicides off the battlefield
Lower Manhattan
New York City in general (and its air quality)
Kennebunkport, Maine
The Hotel Del Coronado
Stem cell research
The Bill of Rights
Harvard's MBA program
Yale University
The history major
Workers' rights
Environmental protections
"Healthy" Forests
"Clear" Skies
"No Child Left Behind"
The elderly
Prescription drugs
Social Security
Valerie Plame
Joseph Wilson
Brewster/Jennings & Associates
Richard Armitage
Helen Thomas
David Gregory
Harry Reid
Nancy Pelosi
The Texas Air National Guard
The Presidential Medal of Freedom
George Tenet
Paul Bremer
Jay Garner
John Poindexter
John Negroponte
John Bolton
The United Nations
The U.N. Security Council
The 9/11 Commission - and its report
The Iraq Study Group - and its report
The swift boat
Legitimate elections
Phil Donahue
The White House Press Corpse
The White House Correspondents Association Dinner
Stephen Colbert
Rich Little
Tom Daschle
Harriet Miers
Terri Schiavo
Michael Schiavo
Arthur Anderson Accounting Firm
Enron - and its thousands of screwed-over employees and stock holders
Kenny-boy
Jeff Skilling
Andy Fastow
Worldcom
Tyco
Global Crossing
Adelphia
Habeas Corpus
Ahmed Chalabi
"Curveball"
The White House Iraq Group
The National Security Administration
Henry Kissinger
Richard Perle
Donald Rumsfeld
Paul Wolfowitz
Kenneth "Cakewalk" Adelman
Karen Hughes
General Anthony Zinni
General Eric Shinseki
The Museum of Antiquities in Baghdad
The World Bank
Shaha Ali Riza - Wolfowitz's girlfriend
John Ashcroft
David Safavian
Susan Ralston
The theory of Evolution
The separation of church and state
The separation of powers
Max Cleland
John McCain
John McCain's wife and adopted daughter
The Kyoto Accords
The Geneva Conventions
Sibel Edmonds
Private Jessica Lynch
Lynndie England and her boyfriend Charles Graner AND their baby
General Janis Karpinski
British Prime Minister Tony Blair
Retired General Ricardo Sanchez
Vladimir Putin
Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi
Former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar
Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard
Hamid Karzai
The resurgent Taliban
Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf
Osama bin Laden (STILL at large)
Waterboarding and other tortures
Retired CIA agent John Kiriakou
Al Qaeda suspect Abu Zubaydah
Al Qaeda suspect Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri
Khalid Sheik Mohammed
CIA Director Michael Hayden
Hugo Chavez
Fidel Castro
Mahmoud Ahmedinejad
The Sunnis
The Shiites
The Kurds
The Framework Agreement with North Korea
Katharine Harris
Rick Santorum
George "Macaca" Allen
AIDS funding for Africa
Robert Novak
James Carville
Tucker Carlson
Charles Krauthammer
Peggy Noonan
Joe Scarborough
Rita Cosby
Joie Chen
Dick Morris
Ralph Reed
Paul O'Neill
John O'Neill - the FBI terrorism expert who died in the WTC, NOT the John Kerry-hater
Morale at the Pentagon
The Pentagon building
The PNAC
Bill Kristol
Dick Cheney
David Addington
Michael Ledeen, etc.
Norm Podhoretz
Karl Rove
Austin attorney Harry "Cheney shot me in the face" Whittington
The Republican Majority in the House
The Republican Majority in the Senate
Saddam Hussein
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
The Morning-After pill
The right to choose
The right to privacy
NPR
Bill Frist
Trent Lott
Strom Thurmond
Dennis Deconcini
"Leather Heather" Wilson
Chuck Hagel
Ray Nagin
Mississippi governor Haley Barbour
Lousiana governor Kathleen Blanco
Brazil ("I didn't know you had black people in Brazil")
Jeb Bush
Paraguay
Pox "News" Channel
Rush Limbaugh
Oxycontin
James Baker III
Lee Hamilton
Former Gov Thomas Keane
Ken Mehlman
Tommy Thompson
Tom Ridge
Curt Weldon
Bandar "Bush"
Enjoyable flying
Jenna and Barbara
Contradicta Rice
The State Department
The Labor Department
The Transportation Department
The Commerce Department
The Treasury Department
The Interior Department - and every other thoroughly-compromised Cabinet department
Mark McKinnon, "Maverick Media", "Public Strategies Inc."
Peter Wehner - White House Office of Strategic Initiatives
Laura Bush
Jenna and Barbara ("Drunk and Disorderly")
General Peter Pace
General Tommy Franks
General Richard Myers
General John Abizaid
"Freedom fries"
Alberto Gonzales
Dubai Ports World
OUR port security
German Chancellor Angela Merkel (groped in public by Bush)
Howard Dean
Public education in America
The poor
The homeless
Christiane Amanpour
Jim Jeffords
Joe Lieberman
Ned Lamont
Jim Talent
Dick DeVos
The outgoing Clinton Administration ("they trashed Air Force One!")
Elizabeth Dole
Michael Steele
Kenneth Blackwell
The city of Crawford, Texas
The Supreme Court
The FDA
The English Language
The Texas Air National Guard
Thanksgiving dinner with the troops
Ted Haggard
Dr. James Dobson
"Focus on the Family"
Jerry Falwell
Pat Robertson
Alabama Chief Justice Roy "Ten Commandments" Moore
David Vitter
David Vitter's wife, Wendy
The "D.C. Madam" - Pamela Martin & Associates
Marilyn Musgrave
The Republicans' Congressional Bible Study room
The space shuttle Columbia
The NASA budget (and its integrity)
Millions of children in Africa
Chicken-fried steak
"Fool me once..."
OB-GYNS who are out there sharing "their love" with their patients
"Bring 'em on"
"You're either with us or you're against us"
Old Europe
Poland
The office of Faith-Based Initiatives
Stem Cell Research
Ouday and Qusay
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
Fired White House chief chef Walter Scheib III
Argentina (Bush twins trash the place)
"Mission Accomplished"
"The Path to 9/11"
Ron Silver
Pretzels
Mountain biking
Paul Wellstone
Richard Gephardt
Paul Hackett
Reliable vote counts
Diebold
Walden O'Dell, CEO of Diebold
Chris Wallace
Michael Moore
The health of the planet
Michael J. Fox
Alan Keyes
The 2001 anthrax victims
David Kuo ("Tempting Faith")
The Office of Faith-Based Initiatives
The yellow ribbon
The Congressional Black Caucus
Al Gore
Warren Christopher
Accountability
Checks and balances
Tony Snow
Stephen Cambone
Stephen Hadley
Keith Ellison, D-Minn (new Muslim congressman lambasted for swearing his oath on the Koran instead of the Bible)
Bankruptcy protections
Rupert Murdoch
Paul Weyrich
Ann Coulter
Kate O'Bierne
Mona Charen
Michelle Malkin
Michael Savage Weiner
Glenn Beck
Michael Reagan
Roger Hedgecock
Cal Thomas
George Will
Mary Matalin
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Kelly Wallace
Carol Lin
Maureen Dowd
Thomas L. Friedman
Sean Hannity
Alan Colmes
Bill "TheGambler" Bennett
The conservative movement
Donna Brazile
Mary Beth Cahill
Michael Medved
NPR's Bob Edwards
Wolf Blitzer
Tim Russert
Paula Zahn
Larry King
Chris Matthews
Norah O'Donnell
Fred Barnes
Morton Kondracke
Pat Buchanan
Bill Schneider
Howard Kurtz
Dana Milbank
ABC newsman Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt
ABC newswoman Elizabeth Vargas
Aaron Brown
Katie Couric
Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl
CBS reporter Kimberly Dozier, cameraman Paul Douglas and soundman James Brolan
NBC reporter David Bloom
List of all journalists (AND OTHERS) killed in Iraq: http://www.rehumanize.us/journalists.html
Hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis also killed (and not counted)
Nick Berg - and family
Hanging chads
Ralph Nader
Scott Reid, senior strategist to then-Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin - "you got a pretty face"
al-Maliki's short-lived predecessors, Ayad Allawi and Ibrahim al-Jaafari
Jason Leopold and "Truthout"
Air America
Patrick Leahy
Jim Webb
Tim Johnson
"Spamalot"
Ferragamos
Oscar de la Renta
Laura Bush's social secretary (should have made sure all those other women didn't turn up in the same designer duds Milady was wearing)
Gay couples who'd like to marry
Gays in general
The flight suit
The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln
Plastic sheeting and duct tape
Queen Elizabeth II
Rachel Paulose, US attorney for Minnesota
Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker
Nancy Nord - acting chair, Consumer Product Safety Commission
The Consumer Product Safety Commission
Rudy "9/11" Giuliani
Judith Nathan Giuliani
New York City's Police Department
Mitt Romney
Mike Huckabee
The Mormon Church
Dana Perino
"Pat" Philbin - Phony FEMA news conference guy
Attorney General Michael Mukasey
Alberto Gonzales
Gonzales's attorney, George J. Terwilliger III of White & Case in Washington
David G. Leitch, a Gonzales friend and general counsel at the Ford Motor Co.
Richard Stickler - Mine Safety and Health Administration
J. Steven Griles - ex #2 at Interior Department (imprisoned for 10 months for lying to Congress in Abramoff scandal)
Daniel Levin - former acting assistant AG (who volunteered for waterboarding to find out whether it was really torture)
Senator Chuck Schumer
Senator Dianne Feinstein
Lt. General Douglas Lute (Pentagon's "war czar")
State Dept.Inspector General Howard J. "Buzzy" Krongard and his brother Alvin
Eric Prince
Blackwater USA
The U.S. International Contract Bridge Team - the Venice Cup Bridge Team - USBF - Jan Martell United States Bridge Federation spokesman
Judith Regan
Brent "Bozo" Bozell
Tony "Focus on the Family" Perkins
General David "Betray Us" Petraeus
MoveOn.org
Scott Bloch, who "runs" the Office of Special Counsel "investigating"
Karl Rove
Barney the dog
The cowboy hat
"Cowboy Diplomacy"
The letter "W"
I know it's completely arbitrary, but I'm ending the list here because if I don't, I'll probably be collecting list items for the rest of my life. The best Dubya can hope for in the new year, I'd suspect, is that SOME Democrat (hey, I'll take ANY Democrat at this point) hasn't been putting together lists of his/her own.
All the more reason to Visualize IMPEACHMENT!!!
And then go DO something about it.
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