A Fond Farewell

Adam Zyglis, editorial cartoonist for the Buffalo News, summed it up pretty well for me in this cartoon that appeared in yesterday's paper. I'm sure, if he'd had more room, he would've added the screwy hiring methods of Alberto Gonzales and the judicial hirings, lack of scientific progress in stem cell research, Exxon Mobil's generation of the largest quarterly corporate profits in human history. I could go on...

I try no to be too overtly political in my commenting. I would never want to purposely offend friends, family, or any of my clients. So I only have you to vent to.

Every time I've seen President Bush selectively recounting his two terms in office it makes me ill. His greatest claim is that he's kept America safe from terrorists since September 11, 2001. If you buy into the fact that his presidency started on September 12, 2001, that is an accurate statement of fact.

If you consider that his presidency started in January, 2001, which it did, then it is also fact that the greatest terrorist attack in American history since Pearl Harbor happened on his watch. And THAT was not keeping America safe by any stretch. That's not getting enough play in the press.

Nearly 3,000 people died in that attack. 4,200 Americans have died in the Iraq war. That's nearly 7,200 Americans that have died in terrorist attacks and an unrelated war on a country that neither terrorized us, nor had the capacity to terrorize us.

This is not including the estimated 150,000 Iraqi lives lost. Just because they're not American lives does not lessen the loss. That's also the single greatest loss of lives since the Vietnam War. And this has made us safe how?

And he has not even mentioned the current Israeli/Palestinian "conflict." The same conflict, of which, a year ago he said he was going to help settle before the end of his presidency. Even at the time he made those comments I thought he was delusional. Turns out he is.

And where is Osama Bin Laden? The guy he wanted "dead or alive?"

And I don't even want to discuss what a mess retirees would be in now had he gotten any traction four years ago with the retirement investment accounts based on the stock market he proposed.

Now, looking back. I feel as though everyone that voted for him to have a second term should apologize to those of us that didn't. During his first term, I thought that his presidency was just a small four-year setback, a momentary blip, in the always-forward progression of our country. It now may take a generation to undo the mess and debt he's left us.

He can take his millions in past and future compensation from his time as president and settle into a good life in retirement, leaving the country much worse than when he came into office. Much like the corporate CEOs he's taken to (verbal) task as a lame duck president.

My house and or apartments in the past have been broken into, and I've had stuff stolen. Has that ever happened to you? I remember a mixture of the emotions of intense helplessness and rage. That is the same feeling I get when I see President Bush defending his years in office. I'm glad he made hard decisions. I just wish, for all our sakes, he'd made the right ones.

Good bye and good riddance.