So Long Worst President Ever; 10 Reasons History Will Hang You

By Bernie Horn, Campaign for America's Future. Posted January 16, 2009.

George W. Bush presented his valedictory last night, desperately seeking thanks and congratulations. So here goes: Thanks and congratulations, W, for showing the world that today's conservatism is an abject failure.

Thanks to Bush, we know that conservatives are not fiscally responsible, they are not for small government, they don't stand up for moral values and they won't make Americans one bit safer. Conservatives aren't even true defenders of "free markets" -- having presided over the biggest market bailout in the world.

After eight long years, Bush can no longer fool the public. Polls show that he is the most unpopular president in the history of survey research. When the 2006 and 2008 elections are considered together, Bush policies resulted in the landslide rejection of his party at both the federal and state levels. There are probably a hundred examples where Bush conservatism failed, but let's stick with the top 10.

1. The worst recession since the 1930s. The current recession will be the deepest and longest downturn since the Great Depression. And unlike other recessions, this one was directly caused by conservative anti-regulatory policy. In fact, recent evaluations show that Bush policies never created any real growth -- the ephemeral financial upswings of the past eight years were based on market bubbles and economic Band-Aids.

2. The worst financial crisis since the 1930s. The Bush administration, flacking an "ownership society," helped manufacture the housing bubble. When it burst, Americans lost $6 trillion in housing wealth (so far), fueling a market crash that has cost Americans $8 trillion of stock wealth, according to economist Dean Baker. On a grand scale, we've been mugged.

3. The worst foreign policy mistake in the history of this country. That's what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., correctly called the Iraq war. This pre-emptive war -- based on phony pretenses -- is now the second longest in our nation's history (after Vietnam). Some 35,000 Americans are dead or wounded, as well as an enormous number of innocent Iraqis. And even today, more than five years later, can anyone explain why Bush marched us into this quagmire?

4. Unprecedented rejection of human rights. Recently, a Bush administration official finally admitted that the U.S. government engaged in torture at Guantanamo Bay detention center. Bush admitted that he personally authorized waterboarding. While these clear violations of the Geneva Conventions would have been unthinkable a few years ago, today we're not surprised. From Abu Ghraib and extraordinary rendition, to years-long detention of innocents and the unrestrained killing of civilians by U.S.-paid mercenaries, this administration has systematically squandered our nation's moral standing in the world, making us less able to protect Americans and American interests worldwide.

5. Watergate-style abuses of power. As the House Judiciary Committee staff has documented, Bush used the politics of fear and division to justify warrantless wiretapping of innocent Americans (including U.S. soldiers fighting overseas), spying on peaceful domestic groups and the use of national security letters to pry into the private records of millions of Americans. He also presided over illegal politicization of the Justice Department and retribution against critics. In fact, Bush claimed the authority to disobey hundreds of laws -- as if Richard Nixon were right when he famously said: "When the president does it, that means it's not illegal."

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