In Which We Note The End Of An Error

I happened to be in the hall when George Bush accepted the presidential nomination on a steamy night in Philadelphia in August 2000. I was horrified not just by the emptiness of his rhetoric but the knowledge that up on the podium was a resume without a man into which every neoconservative and other right-wing Republican with a burr in their saddle would pour their animosities and causes.

It was going to be rocky four or eight years, but no one could have foreseen the scope and magnitude of the consequent disaster.

My friend Robert Stein notes that he was coasting along in octogenarian ease, writing the occasional op-ed or letter to the editor, but Bush made a blogger out of him because what he was doing "demanded a more immediate and unbuttoned outlet."

That's pretty much my story, too, and Bob guesstimates that he's done 2,000 Bush posts. If anything, I've done even more.

While I do not lay awake at night wondering whether I have been unfair to Bush, I acknowledge that some of those posts were long on anger and short on gravitas. Truth be known, it took a while to get beyond his smirking narcissism. So I have tried to step back and look for positive outcomes amidst the wreckage of the last eight years.

Alas, there simply are none of consequence, and while a heart may beat in Bush's chest, the sum of his tenure has been disaster.

Many otherwise smart people are arguing that it is time to move on from the last eight years. This includes a goodly number who believe that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzo and their cronies should go free regardless of their crimes and excesses.

That is more likely to happen than not anyway, but I'm not quite ready to let go, hence one more look today at the Epic Fail of the Age of Bush before the worst president in nearly 150 years -- if not the worst ever -- scutts back to Texas to search among the sagebrush for his squandered legacy. Oh, and Barack Obama begins the task of trying to put the pieces back together again.