America: Bushed Over A Cliff  

The SMH has an article on the demise of the US economy (along with many other previously positive aspects) under the Bush administration - America didn't jump off the cliff - it was Bushed.

We like our failed presidents to be Shakespearean, or at least large enough to inspire Oscar-worthy performances from magnificent tragedians. So here, too, George Bush has let us down. He is not a memorable villain so much as a sometimes affable second banana whom Will Ferrell can nail without breaking a sweat. He is smaller than life.

The last NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll on Bush's presidency found that 79 per cent of Americans will not miss him. He is being forgotten already, even if he's not yet gone. You start to pity him until you remember how vast the wreckage is, stretching from the Middle East to Wall Street to Main Street and even into the heavens, which have been a safe haven for toxins under his passive stewardship.

The one indisputable ability of his White House was to create and sell propaganda both to the public and the press. Now that bag of tricks is also empty. In what was intended as a farewell victory lap to show off Iraq's improved post-surge security, Bush was reduced to ducking shoes.

Iraq burned, New Orleans flooded, and Bush remained oblivious to each and every pratfall on his watch. Americans essentially stopped listening to him after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, but he still doesn't grasp the finality of their defection.

Bush is equally blind to the collapse of his propaganda machinery. Almost poignantly, he keeps trying to hawk his goods in these final days. Though no one is listening, he has given more exit interviews than either Clinton or Reagan. Along with old cronies like Karl Rove, he has embarked on a Bush "legacy project", as Stephen Hayes of The Weekly Standard described it on CNN.

To this end, Rove has repeated a stunt he first fed to the press two years ago: claiming that he and Bush have an annual book-reading contest, with Bush chalking up as many as 95 books a year, by authors as high-falutin' as Camus. This hagiographic portrait of Bush the Egghead might be easier to buy were the former national security official Richard Clarke not quoted in the new Vanity Fair saying that both Condoleezza Rice and her deputy, Stephen Hadley, had instructed him early on to keep his memos short as the President is "not a big reader".

All politicians are prone to make slips of the tongue in the heat of the moment - and President George W Bush has made more than most.

The word "Bushism" has been coined to label his occasional verbal lapses during eight years in office, which come to an end on 20 January.

Here are some of his most memorable pronouncements.

ON HIMSELF

"They misunderestimated me."
Bentonville, Arkansas, 6 November, 2000

''I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe - I believe what I believe is right." Rome, 22 July, 2001

"There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame on... shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again."
Nashville, Tennessee, 17 September, 2002

"There's no question that the minute I got elected, the storm clouds on the horizon were getting nearly directly overhead."
Washington DC, 11 May, 2001

"I want to thank my friend, Senator Bill Frist, for joining us today. He married a Texas girl, I want you to know. Karyn is with us. A West Texas girl, just like me."
Nashville, Tennessee, 27 May, 2004

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

"For a century and a half now, America and Japan have formed one of the great and enduring alliances of modern times."
Tokyo, 18 February, 2002

"The war on terror involves Saddam Hussein because of the nature of Saddam Hussein, the history of Saddam Hussein, and his willingness to terrorise himself."
Grand Rapids, Michigan, 29 January, 2003

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." Washington DC, 5 August, 2004

"I think war is a dangerous place." Washington DC, 7 May, 2003

"The ambassador and the general were briefing me on the - the vast majority of Iraqis want to live in a peaceful, free world. And we will find these people and we will bring them to justice."
Washington DC, 27 October, 2003

"Free societies are hopeful societies. And free societies will be allies against these hateful few who have no conscience, who kill at the whim of a hat."
Washington DC, 17 September, 2004

"You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror."
CBS News, Washington DC, 6 September, 2006

EDUCATION

"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"
Florence, South Carolina, 11 January, 2000

"Reading is the basics for all learning."
Reston, Virginia, 28 March, 2000

"As governor of Texas, I have set high standards for our public schools, and I have met those standards."
CNN, 30 August, 2000

"You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.''
Townsend, Tennessee, 21 February, 2001

ECONOMICS

"I understand small business growth. I was one."
New York Daily News, 19 February, 2000

"It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it."
Reuters, 5 May, 2000

"I do remain confident in Linda. She'll make a fine Labour Secretary. From what I've read in the press accounts, she's perfectly qualified."
Austin, Texas, 8 January, 2001

"First, let me make it very clear, poor people aren't necessarily killers. Just because you happen to be not rich doesn't mean you're willing to kill."
Washington DC, 19 May, 2003