I’ll start with this increasingly embarrassing fact: if I were motivated enough to do things like register in the states where I live, I would have voted for GWB in 00 and, grudgingly, again in 04 (I remember thinking how much Edwards Trial Lawyer affiliation scared me though it now seems obvious that as VP affiliations go you can’t do much worse that Cheney). But I’m lazy and I missed both opportunities to be part of the problem or the solution.
I’m not scholar enough or old enough to authoritatively declare GWB the worst president ever, but for the sake of those how lived though the tenures of the other candidates I can only hope that he’s winning the title by a large margin. Sadly, the problem with government is that its actions tend to cement themselves and can be hard to undo (witness the recently repealed phone tax from the Spanish American War). I do hope that’s not the case this time around. The Bush presidency has become like the Exxon Valdez, and sadly we’re going to have to sit around and watch it leak sludge all over everything for another couple years before we can even start cleaning up.
In an effort to aid the process, I’m starting a little to-do list for Jan 09 when we finally hit the inky beach and start hosing down the rocks and birds. I’m sure there are plenty of other places we could start, but I’d love it if we kicked things off in the Grand Canyon, where administration policy still requires educated park employees to act as if they have no idea how old the old hole in the ground might be, and where the gift shop still sells, again thanks to admin pressure, a book suggesting it might just be the work of good old Noah’s flood. You can read an update from the frustrated employees here.
There are probably a hundred other disasters that rise from the same adherence to the ‘faith over facts doctirine’, all in need of repair, and, given their disastrous scale, the fact that we’re trying to retard our own people into thinking they’re staring into Noah’s old surf spot seems like the kind of thing that might fly under the radar. If the next captain of the ship wants to let us all know that he or she is alert and sober and steering clear of well marked rocks, I can’t think of a better move than to start by sponging the mess off a national treasure.
Most of the time progress means moving forward. Unfortunately, when this is all over, I think we’re going to have to spend a fair amount of time in reverse.
January 2, 2007 at 11:07 am
Wow, this is truely a scary article. It’s amazing to me that there are so many completely ignorant and uneducated people out there and that the leaders of our country are making it one of their top priorities to keep it that way.