America is in a real pickle these days – but just how did we get here? Jim Amrhein reminds us, in signature pull-no-punches style, that the man who just left the White House had an eight-year hand in this mess…

“Farewell, fair cruelty.”
–
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

Like the unceremonious dumping of a codependent spouse once a new lover has come of age, America’s mainstream media seems to have stuffed the entire George W. Bush presidency into a shoebox and crammed it into the back of history’s closet…

I guess this should come as no surprise. For better or worse, a new era of American leadership dawns. And it does not serve the architects of an emergent ethos and by “architects,” I mean the mainstream media — to glorify, or even acknowledge, the achievements of past leaders…

Especially when they’re Republican.

The fundamental truth that new power is best served by erasing old power’s legacy transcends politics — and even humanity. It is written in the DNA of life itself. That’s why a young alpha male lion kills the cubs sired by the pride’s former patriarch. It’s simply the brutal nature of things…

However, among supposedly “higher primates” like humans — which (if only barely) includes newspaper and magazine editors, Big 3 network news producers and anchors, and the Sean Penns, Michael Moores, and Al Gores in whose expert opinions we all seem to put so much stock — I’d expect at least a discernible measure of gratitude to an outgoing president, no matter how anathema in their circles.

And I think this is especially appropriate when the new power owes its very existence to the former regime. You’ll see exactly what I mean as you read on here…

Along those lines, I feel an obligation to do something on behalf of my mainstream media cousins. It’s a favor that, owing to my position on publishing’s fringes and status as an unabashed editorialist, I have the freedom to do — but that they cannot, owing to their, uh… objectivity.

So, without further ado, I hereby express what every member of the major American media establishment surely feels — but can’t say…

“Thank You, President Bush.”

Let us remember that before he dethroned Democrat Harry S. Truman (nope, not Richard Nixon) as the least popular president since the Gallup people started keeping track of such things, George W. Bush held the title of most popular president in modern history, with a 92% approval rating in late 2001.

And it was precisely W’s highest-ever approval rating that gave the mainstream media a juicy target — there was nowhere for him to go but down. Kind of like his father, the second highest-rated president in modern history (89% positive approval numbers)…

But I digress: This is about the big, sloppy kiss the mainstream media owes Bush 43 for the last 7+ years of target practice. I think it’s the least they can do, given the fact that The Decider himself gave them all the ammunition they needed to shoot him into oblivion. And I’m not just talking about his butchery of the lingo and vapid, tone-deaf rhetoric. It was his crappy strategery, too.

That’s why I’m offering the following fond farewell to President George Walker Bush on behalf of a grateful mainstream media…

Thank you, Mr. President, for embroiling us in an Iraq war with no clearly articulated purpose except the asinine notion of findable WMDs, no concrete exit strategy, a price tag that has arguably spurred us into national economic free fall — and with no possibility for rewards (we won’t seize the oil, we’ll buy it like everyone else) beyond our collective pride at having spread democracy by force. Oh, and a war that carries the perpetual taint of appearing to be nothing more than therapy. No matter what history reveals to be the real forces driving this action, we in the media will always be able to at least plausibly posit that the whole damned opera was nothing more than an insecure, underachieving son dealing with his Oedipal issues by killing thousands of his own countrymen.

Thank you, Mr. President, for bloating the size, scope and expense of government on a scale that exceeds a liberal journalist’s wildest fantasies. Your unprecedented expansion of the federal footprint in the interest of a bipartisan legacy has forever rendered laughable any Republican claim of a “small government” party philosophy. Kudos for effectively taking the conservative movement’s one unsullied trump card off the table for all future elections, and awakening the American public to the reality that anyone they vote for will be a “big government” candidate — so they might as well have the Democrats’ programs and pork here at home, rather than the Republicans’ missiles, wars and spy-cameras abroad. Thanks to your re-invention of the Republican platform from “small government is better than big government” into “our big government is better than their big government,” the only truly conservative threat to Democrat victory in the 2008 Presidential race, Ron Paul, was all but laughed off the stage by his own party.

Thank you, Mr. President, for all but ignoring the one core issue your own party could still get major ideological traction with, an issue that more than 80% of Americans are concerned about even to this day: Illegal immigration. Your party’s strong rhetoric, yet nonexistent action, on this issue has given the Democrats a license to ignore it as well. We salute your lack of initiative in grappling with illegal immigration decisively in the wake of 9/11, when it would have been easy to muster Congressional support for the building of barriers and the institution of stronger anti-hiring and deportation measures in the interest of national security. But because of your poor foresight and utter inaction then, we can now spin any Obama-led immigration policy change whatsoever as a Democrat triumph on a conservative core issue the GOP couldn’t make any progress on. You’ve made us — er, I mean the Democrats — into the party that can reach across the aisle and get things done.

Thank you, Mr. President, for what policies you did enact in the interest of national security after 9/11, some of which are the least popular measures among the American populace since Prohibition. You deserve a hearty “attaboy” for spearheading the Patriot Act, which stands forevermore as a shining beacon of questionably constitutional legislation that has the potential to do more inward harm than outward good. Also, great move on the formation of the Department of Homeland Security, a confused, inefficient, yet huge and deeply funded agency that seems aimed more toward publicly showcasing the U.S. government’s inanity and inefficiency than keeping anyone safe. We left-leaning journalists admire your decision to spend billions and create tens of thousands of low-level government jobs cavity-searching random airline passengers rather than arming pilots with $500 Glocks and frangible, air-safe ammunition. Guns are evil and never save any lives — and pilots are known to be people of erratic judgment. That “Sully” guy who saved 150 people by landing his powerless plane on an icy Hudson River is a fluke. Most pilots would’ve grabbed the gun and started plugging all the passengers instead…

Thank you, Mr. President, for enough sound bites of unscripted idiocy to poison the American public toward any kind of plain-speaking presidential candidate for the rest of time. Your blathering has single-handedly assassinated the historically strong appeal of Presidents of either party with down-home, folksy, straight-talking charm — and programmed Americans to be more receptive to the slickest-tongued and most teleprompter-dependent candidates in any election. Like Barack Obama, our savior.

Thank you, Mr. President, for the thousand small things that transformed our unspoken national motto from the conservative-at-heart Kennedy’s long-enduring “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country,” to “What has my country done for me lately?” Whether it’s the huge explosion in government make-work jobs, the gross expansion of Medicare and Medicaid benefits, the transparent bribing of Americans with asinine tax refund checks instead of simply cutting taxes and simplifying the tax code, or any number of other things that make this administration more emblematic than any other of the “me state,” we thank you on behalf of the Democrats for doing all their dirty work for them. And finally…

Thank you, Mr. President, for the million other things you did that helped ensure that our new lover, the Big O himself, ascended to his rightful throne. We can’t possibly list them all, but among them are: Your shady Big Oil running-mate, your sketchy Cold-War era appointments, your nonsensical economic policies, your systematic alienation of other leaders of the Free World, and your proud “God first” mentality that soured a nation on qualified Republican candidates like Mitt Romney and positioned the big-tax, soft-on-immigration, long-in-the-tooth John McCain as the only electable 2008 GOP option.

You handed us — damn, I mean the Democrats — the easy win. We’re euphoric, of course. But now we don’t have anyone to crucify anymore, since Democrat-Christian-American-of-multicultural-mixed-race-descent Barack Obama is president, and nothing will ever be wrong under the Stars and Stripes, ever again…

But God, what a ride we had with you, W. We’ll never forget you, Bushie.

Love,
The MSM

A Tragedy of Shakespearean Proportions

Shakespeare’s beloved Twelfth Night is a play about a person born of aristocracy who is freakishly thrust into extraordinary circumstances that dictate the assumption of an unnatural identity. Comedy ensues…

Sound familiar?

To me, it sounds exactly like George W. Bush’s presidency. Except that, aside from the levity of his “Bush-isms” and shoe-bomb attacks at press conferences, the cosmic author of W’s presidential play was clearly writing a tragedy…

And that’s a tough pill to swallow for someone who voted for him.

Now, with 20/20 hindsight, I’m sorry I did. Though I have no regrets about choosing dimwit W over Ketchup King Kerry in 2004, I’m now firmly convinced that my vote would have been much better spent in 2000 on the Tennessee totem pole, Al Gore.

That no doubt surprises those of you who know me well. I’ve made a good chunk of my editorial career out of skewering religions — and none more so than Gore’s militant environmentalism…

In part two of this series, coming in the next 10 days, I’ll explain exactly why this nation of ours would be miles better off right now if Al Gore had been elected president instead of George W. Bush.

I’ll also explain why it would have been the best thing to ever happen to the GOP in America, the mainstream media’s best efforts notwithstanding…

Stay tuned, Taipaners.

Jim Amrhein
Contributing Editor, Taipan Daily

P.S. Before I leave you — and all tongue-in-cheek facetiousness aside — I want to extend a very sincere, personal and public thanks to George W. Bush, the president I helped to elect twice:

Thank you, Mr. President, for putting the “good” in “goodbye.

Source: To George W. Bush, With Love (part one)

Editorial Director’s Note:

In our zeal for speaking truth to power, we are equal opportunity offenders here at the Taipan Publishing Group. You may have noticed that lately we’ve been, shall we say, a tad harsh on the new administration… so it’s only fair that Jim Amrhein, truth-speaker par excellence, now properly roasts the outgoing Prez.

Agree? Disagree? Let your feelings flow, and I’ll pass ‘em along to Jim: justice@taipandaily.com