The Last Scream of the Spider Monkey

Even though it was hopefully the last State of the Union speech George W. Bush will deliver, I couldn’t bring myself to watch it. The only way I can watch Bush speak is to clear the living room of heavy objects, pad the walls, and place a protective metal grill over the TV screen. The instant words begin tumbling out of Bush’s mouth I feel a primal rage rising in my chest.

So, I didn’t catch the speech but from reports in the LA and NY Times I gather that Bush was his usual unapologetic and myopic self, confident that the tide has turned in Iraq, that the American economy is fundamentally sound, and that his tax cuts for the wealthy must be made permanent. This man, who with his sidekick Dick Cheney and a host of appointed sycophants, boot-lickers, cronies, and flacks, has done more to undermine the trust of the American public than U.S. Grant, Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon combined, had the balls to talk about Trust.

But that’s Bush. The man’s narrative is fixed in what remains of his brain, and nothing on earth can change it. Bush is known to believe in the justice and judgment of History, that time will prove that he was not an incompetent fool, but a president of strength and character. Sure, why not? Ronald Reagan believed that trees cause air pollution and that ketchup qualified as a vegetable. Though time doesn’t necessarily heal all wounds, it does tend to dim memories and push context out of shape. I can imagine a gathering, fifteen years or so from now, when W has built his Presidential library with millions in right-wing evangelical money, of Alberto Gonzalez, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill Kristol, John Bolton, Fred Barnes and Dick Cheney – the latter wheelchair bound, with drool dripping from a mouth fixed in a permanent snarl – all jabbering about the “good old days” and what a great leader Bush was. If Richard Nixon can be re-made into an “elder” statesman, it’s not unfathomable that George W. Bush can be made to appear like the American version of Winston Churchill.

The pre-9/11 Bush was easier to tolerate. Back then he was like a dumb frat boy with a new car, only mildly hazardous to himself and others. After 9/11, when Bush donned his Christian crusader armor and gleefully sent other people’s children off to fight and die, the horror of George Senior and Barbara’s reproductive mistake became clear. W’s hands are stained with the blood and suffering of thousands, and even Father Time can’t change that brutal fact.

The Spider Monkey has screamed for the last time. Americans can sleep tonight secure in the knowledge that the sands of time are finally running out on the worst president in U.S. history.