What Bush Left Out of His Flat Farewell

George W. Bush gave his final speech to the nation on Thursday night. I skipped it to see my daughter, who has known no other president, perform with her school chorus. But when I later sat before my television to see how the speech was being punditized on the cable news shows, I was surprised. The water-landing of a US Airways flight in New York City dominated the coverage. There was little chatter--almost nothing--about Bush's farewell.

After watching the speech on the White House website, I understood why. It was flat and short. Bush said little of interest. He dwelled mostly on 9/11 and the so-called war on terror, once again (and for the last official time) characterizing the invasion of Iraq as part of his effort to take "the fight to the terrorists." He suggested that although the Iraq war was the subject of "legitimate debate," there "can be little debate about the results. America has gone more than seven years without another terrorist attack on our soil."

Was the nation's safety ensured because Bush invaded Iraq and did not finish the fight in Afghanistan? No doubt, he and his ever-dwindling band of defenders will continue to insist that it is so--just as a rooster might insist there is a connection between his crowing and the rising of the sun. And Bush defended himself for having been "willing to make the tough decisions"--as if making hard choices is the same as making wise ones.

For most of the 13 minutes he spoke, Bush offered surface-level observations. He provided one quote, noting that President Thomas Jefferson once remarked, "I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past." It's no wonder Bush fancies this line. Given that he is passing to Barack Obama a country burdened with two unresolved wars and an economy in severe decline, Bush certainly would rather look forward (and hope his now unpopular presidency comes to be seen in better terms down the road) than face the present-day consequences of his actions and inaction.

Ernest Hemingway, I believe, once observed that what one doesn't put on the page is as important as what one does. And what Bush did not discuss in his farewell address also defines his presidency. Here is a partial list:

* Climate change
* China
* Russia
* North Korea
* Iran
* Pakistan
* Osama bin Laden
* Nuclear weapons
* Poverty
* Health insurance
* Foreclosures
* Housing
* Guantanamo
* National debt
* Budget deficit
* Trade deficit
* Wall Street
* Financial regulation
* Dow Jones
* Retirement security
* Social Security
* Medicaid
* Energy
* Immigration
* Automobile industry
* Housing
* Subprime credit
* Wages
* Jobs
* FEMA

What else is there to say? In the end, after eight long and traumatic years, Bush did not have much to tell us. Who wouldn't rather watch a miracle airplane landing than a failure saying goodbye?

This was first posted at www.davidcorn.com. You can follow my postings and appearances via Twitter by clicking here.

Comments

[eminence front]

I did not want to hate Bush....but I do.

I did not want to bail out the banks...but we did.

I want to live in a country where we love each...we should.

[proudcalib]

Bush can never leave bad enough alone. All his farewell tour is doing is infuriating the 75% of the country. Hit the road, Jack.

[realpolitic]

Bush's defense of his administration's response to Hurricane Katrina was surprising in its imbecility even for the detached Bush. He said we should be glad a few people were plucked from rooftops by helicopter. Thirty thousand people were crowded for a week in the Superdome and Bush says we should be glad that the government functioned at all.

[Spud777]

Spot on, Merci

[ClevelandTom]

Bush and his remaining supporters are trying to build his legacy on the idea that there were no further terrorist attacks in the U.S. after 9/11. That means, they say, that Bush's policies to torture, imprison people indefinitely with no due process, and nibble away portions of the Bill of Rights were the right thing to do.

The reality is that there is no evidence that any of those things prevented another attack on the U.S. I am firmly of the opinion that if Bush had a clear cut success story of preventing another attack, for political reasons he would make sure that story would get into the news. Indeed, there is evidence that AQ turned their attention to other targets after 9/11 and did not attempt an attack on the U.S.

So I for one consider the idea of Bush as the heroic protector of the U.S. to be just one more unproven claim of success that we have seen so often from the Bush admin.

[HWBII]

Wouldn't you love to ask Bush who was president from 1/20/2001 until 9/11/2001? Whoever dismissed the briefing on 8/06/2001 about Al Quaeda's determination to strike the US as just staff "covering their asses" surely has a lot to answer for. Who could that possibly be? Hmmm.....

[batmanindy]

I just hate him for what he did to this country, my home sweet home.

[cleaningthenationsattic]

You're right...these 30 issues should have been discussed in great detail during his 15 minutes of air time. Thanks.

[ChiGuy]

Sarcasm duly noted. And you're partially right.

The part you DIDN'T include, was that he should have addressed and apologized for those total failures a long time ago, when he had plenty of time.

[disgusted48]

Mr. Corn
We need to see and hear from you more often.

[army193]

JEP57 I have a bridge for sale in California if you believe what you posted.

[JEP57]

What Bush should've discussed in detail are:

*Freeing a country of a brutal dictator

*Bringing democracy to that same country

*Greatly weakening the taliban and al Qaeda

*Helping Africa with the AIDS crisis

*Protecting us from subsequent attacks with information obtained from terrorist

[worldwithoutus]

amen to that

[disgusted48]

911 happened on bush's watch. his responsibility. period. end of story.

[thismachinekillsfascists]

Freeing the country and destroying the infrastructure, not to mention liquidating hundreds of thousands of people, displacing millions, and generally making a cock up of the middle east.

All to get one man.

Is that what you call a legacy?

[HWBII]

P.S. He didn't try very hard to get him. Or was it just incompetence?

[tanoli]

The brutal dictator did not kill so many Iraqis or US Army as did Bush

Democracy in Iraq? That's a puppet govt. elected and paid for by the US

*Greatly weakening the taliban and al Qaeda?? Kid your self Taliban is strong Al Qaeda is stronger

*Helping Africa with the AIDS crisis - Agree on this

*Protecting us from subsequent attacks with information obtained from terrorist
What you talking about? Aha you mean media censorship in the US??

[RainbowPhoenix]

Bush did not help with the AIDS crisis. If anything he made it worse with his abstinence only BS.

[rockne]

Where are you getting vour facts? According to civil Rights Watch, Hussein's actions resulted in the deaths (war and non-war casualties) of close to 2 million people. Are you saying the war iraq has resulted in a similar number of deaths??

[HWBII]

Tanoli: You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. For instance, perhaps you haven't noted that the Taliban is ascendant today in Afghanistan, largely because we abandoned that war in the rush to invade Iraq? Or that the so-called democracy in Iraq is only empowering the Shia majority to get their own back against the Sunni, and brutally? Or that the whole balance of power in that part of the world was upset because we unseated Hussein, a Sunni, and thereby encouraged a Shia alliance between Iraq and Iran? Read some history about the last hundred years there and you'll see it would not have taken a rocket scientist to figure out this would backfire, big time. If only our President had been a little more interested in relatively recent history he would have seen this. But like many intellectually lazy and fundamentalist people he only listened to those of like minds. Pity.

[zitlight73]

A tale of two pilots one that crash lands a plane saving everybody on board including those flying economy even checking his plane for anyone left in the plane at no small risk to himself. And then there is the AWOL pilot who crashes an entire country and only saves those 2% flying first class, lying through his teeth to appear the hero he'll never be.

[paixa3]

Perfect summarisation, kudos to you.

[HWBII]

Ditto. I would not have thought of it in those terms. Very incisive. Mind if I borrow it?

[newleaf]

let's re-wind and vote for the first guy instead of the second.

[springisnow]

TWO WORDS! I watched W's final TV interruption. He did not say the two most important words we all needed to hear. these two words? I'm Sorry! George should spend the rest of his years saying I'm sorry to anyone he meets. I'm sorry I broke the economy, I'm sorry we went to Iraq and killed 160,000 Iraqis, I'm sorry I didn't help some of those people in New Orleans. The list is endless.

He should start every sentence with "I'm George, and I'm sorry. "

He just doesn't get it. It isn't supposed to be about him. It should be about the American people. It's not his flyover of Katrina, but the lack of actual help to the victims of Katrina that we judge him by.

It wasn't about the fact there were no weapons of mass destruction. He wishes there were, so he could be vindicated. I'm glad there weren't any (so we weren't actually in danger), but I am angry that even though we knew there weren't any we went in anyway and we used it as an excuse long past when it was debunked.

I know I'm sorry about the last 8 years, I just wish W could say so too.

[worldwithoutus]

how can any reasonable person beleive that one man did all that better start looking at congress ie barney frank ,nancy pelosi ,harry reid ,hillary clinton,all voted for or against most of what you are blaming on one man who never had the power alone

[newleaf]

read some books - W. did plenty wrong, with his co-horts. Don't forget Repubs controlled Congress for six of his eight years.

[N2Sman]

You are part of the 35% that will never change. You must be over ruled.

[HWBII]

I think you might be a little confused. Everyone in Congress votes either for or against anything put to the vote. And your point is?

[jqcitizen]

spring-
The two words the entire world would like to hear from this person will never be heard until he admits he is in denial.
He is indeed 'Sorry', he just doesn't realize it.

[HWBII]

I fear he will live the rest of his life without reflection as I don't think he is capable of it. He will die unenlightened, and therefor, unburdened by the horror he has inflicted upon this nation and the world. I wonder what St. Peter will have to say to him at the old pearly gates. Can you be condemned to hell (his belief, not necessarily mine) because you were lazy and narcissistic in life? Or because you caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands through your actions? I sure think so -- my belief, obviously not his.

[Faith Hart]

President Bush quoted Thomas Jefferson in his farewell speech. Perhaps he should have quoted these lines of Jefferson's: "A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt....If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake."

[ThermoChemist]

Other Jefferson quotes Dubya should have read:

"In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in men, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."

"The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite."

"Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government…"

"On the altar of God, I pledge undying hostility to any government restrictions on the free minds of the people."

"The time to guard against corruption and tyranny is before they shall have gotten hold of us"

"Experience hath shewn that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."

"Dissent is the most patriotic act"

[newleaf]

sounds appropriate for Obama to read in his inauguration speech.

[HWBII]

Faith Hart, Thanks for this, very much. Hopefully the 'witches' are indeed in the process of 'passing over' us. It reminded me of JFK's remarks during a dinner at the White House honoring all American Nobel Prize winners; "There has never been a greater concentration of intellectual power here at the White House since Thomas Jefferson dined alone." Never were truer words spoken.

[UnclePhuc]

"Terror" is subjective, and usually pertains only to brown people. Remember Timothy McVeigh? That guy's photo should be in the dictionary next to the word "terrorist." Bush et al just slap the label on whoever they want to pound on so it will fit into his talking points. This is not to say that we should not be concerned about some groups in some parts of the world, but let's sort out the difference between propaganda and reality.

[StevenWells]

A few points. No one doubts there are terrorists; it's the "war on terror" which is phony, or more accurately, a pretext for the abuses and crimes committed by the Bush administration. It doesn't take brains to be evil, and Bush had a lot of help; this administration consisted of more then "just one man." Obama has never claimed to be "magic," or anything other than human, and he - like all presidents - should be watched and kept honest, to whatever degree that is possible.