Dear George Herbert Walker Bush: You Can Go Away Now

Seriously. Get lost.

I read in the venerable USA Today that:

Former president George H.W. Bush forcefully defended his son's handling of the Iraq war Thursday, saying critics of the current president have forgotten the "extraordinary brutality" of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

"Do they want to bring back Saddam Hussein, these critics?" the elder Bush told USA TODAY in a rare interview. "Do they want to go back to the status quo ante? I don't know what they are talking about here. Do they think life would be better in the Middle East if Saddam were still there?"

Ok, listen up. I rarely write original posts anymore (outside of Bobblespeak Translations) but I survived the Bush pere Presidency, and there is a reason America voted his whiny ass out of office once already. We don't want to hear from him anymore.

First, you have to understand the Bush never really wanted to be President in the first place. Oh, he deeply desired it, as the pinnacle of achievement in America, and he being such a blue-blooded patrician, felt he deserved it, and America was deserving of him. But unlike say, FDR, Johnson, Reagan, JFK, or Clinton, he lacked both a desire to actually do something with the office -that is a vision - ("the vision thing") and the light and common touch all those men brought the job.

After briefly and forgettably serving in various jobs like head of the CIA, ambassador to the UN and envoy to China, the media pronounced him qualified and he was off.

But his heart wasn't really in it, and certainly not in politics. So he turned to people like Lee Atwater, and told us that Dukakis wanted to bring down America, that his dog knew more than Bill Clinton, and mocked Al Gore as Ozone Man.

His flailing and jabbering were not an accident. He had no political skills because he had no politics, other than "you people should be governed by you betters - me." Ever see HW Bush in his debate against Geraldine Ferraro? He was so inept it was horrifying ("whine on, harvest moon!")

Like other amateurs, he assumed that this is what politicians do - lie and smear people. He was able to keep campaigning separate from governing, though it also revealed a cold hearted naked ambition for power divorced from ethics or ideology.

So Bush could be vicious, but he was not brainless, and left Saddam Hussein in power, a defensible position then and now.

According the article:

The elder Bush reacted testily when asked about criticism of his son. "I don't reminisce with … my friends like you about what my son does or doesn't do," Bush said. But "I think we forget even today the extraordinary brutality of Saddam Hussein."

What can one say?

Poppy, fuck you.

Bush is upset, of course, because his son is being criticized, and his Presidency is now largely regarded as a colossal failure.

But there is more to it than that. 8 years ago, George HW Bush's presidency was associated in lockstep with Ronald Reagan's. Now it will forever be linked with his son's.

In other words, George W has not only trashed his own legacy, but his father's as well.

I understand that's upsetting, and I certainly wish the nation (and the world) had been spared this raging Oedipal conflict these last 7 years.

But no, Poppy, we haven't forgotten that Saddam was brutal, just I assume you haven't forgotten that you left that brutal guy in power to continue his brutality.

So please go away now, and take your fellow ancient, weepy, self-pitying, best friend Don Imus, and your fixer/consigliere James Baker, and your Nazi sympathizing -ancestors, and your criminal sons, and their wastrel families, with you, to whatever fresh hell nature has designated for name of Bush to dwell in forever and for all time.