Bob Herbert: Adding Up (Bush's) Damage

[babylonsister]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/opinion/30herbert.html?_r=2&ref=opinion

Add Up the Damage

By BOB HERBERT
Published: December 29, 2008


Does anyone know where George W. Bush is?

snip//

There seemed to be no end to Mr. Bush’s talent for destruction. He tried to hand the piggy bank known as Social Security over to the marauders of the financial sector, but saner heads prevailed.

In New Orleans, the president failed to intervene swiftly and decisively to aid the tens of thousands of poor people who were very publicly suffering and, in many cases, dying. He then compounded this colossal failure of leadership by traveling to New Orleans and promising, in a dramatic, floodlit appearance, to spare no effort in rebuilding the flood-torn region and the wrecked lives of the victims.

He went further, vowing to confront the issue of poverty in America “with bold action.”

It was all nonsense, of course. He did nothing of the kind.

The catalog of his transgressions against the nation’s interests — sins of commission and omission — would keep Mr. Bush in a confessional for the rest of his life. Don’t hold your breath. He’s hardly the contrite sort.

He told ABC’s Charlie Gibson: “I don’t spend a lot of time really worrying about short-term history. I guess I don’t worry about long-term history, either, since I’m not going to be around to read it.”

The president chuckled, thinking — as he did when he made his jokes about the missing weapons of mass destruction — that there was something funny going on.

[roseBudd]

1. DUers please click through to reward the NYTimes w/your page views, they need them...

and for employing such a fine columnist as Bob Herbert.

Otherwise his replacement may be in India.