Countdown to Emancipation

We're a little more than twenty-four hours away from finally awaking from a long national nightmare.

And we're just hours away from swearing in a president who could be among the best in American history.

George Walker Bush and his cronies have brought the United States to its knees. The Southern wing of the Republican Party ruled us with an iron fist. Its adherents shoved their "values" down our throats. They tore the country apart to win a couple of razor-close elections. And they lied us into a war to generate profits for their corporate donors.

President Barack Obama promises to renew our nation's commitment to our core values both at home and abroad, and to invest in our people and future again by asking all of us to join him in this great rebuilding effort.

In a sense, the people like us who opposed Bush from the start are going to be paid reparations for having to endure his relentless eight-year assault on our country.

In a weird way, if it weren't for Bush's miserable misrule the political conditions never would have been set to allow a person like Barack Obama to come near the presidency.

Too bad it took the collapse of just about everything to make progressive change possible in this country. But we never would have gotten Social Security without the Great Depression either. So I'm grateful that most Americans have finally seen the light. It's about time!

The Bush "legacy" continues. Even as he leaves office he is blocking the release of over 14 million White House emails. These "missing" emails are part of the public record and cover the period from March 2003 through October 2005, a time when Bush's criminality was at its peak. They include correspondence relating to the start of the Iraq war and its rapid deterioration, Bush's re-election campaign, the Social Security privatizing scheme, Hurricane Katrina, and who knows what else? A U.S. district judge recently directed the White House to notify all employees to surrender the emails, and a magistrate judge ordered a search of all Executive Office workstations and portable media for the correspondence.

President Obama is going to open up the White House to the public again instead of treating it like a white rich man's private estate. It will be a breath of fresh air. No presidential transition has struck such a stark contrast, not even on that cold March day in 1933 when Herbert Hoover scowled his way out of office and the ebullient Franklin Delano Roosevelt took over.

So let's all take a little time out today and tomorrow and celebrate the passing of the torch of presidential leadership from the putrid, corrupt and authoritarian rule of a closed-minded frat boy -- to the visionary, progressive leadership of an extraordinarily talented and caring human being!

At long last we have a president who can inspire our better angels.

Comments

[Joseph A. Palermo - Huffpost Blogger]

I dug out of my drawers somewhere an old T-Shirt that features George W. Bush's mug displayed exactly where the skull would be of the Jolly Rogers with the warning: "Danger" in large letters. Drinking a few rum and cokes and just really ready to party tonight! It's a planetary celebration -- Kenya, Mexico, Europe, Japan, Hawaii, Indonesia people the world over viewing the U.S. as liberators. Their throwing chocolates and flowers! There hasn't been a celebration like this since the Berlin Wall came down!

[Joseph A. Palermo - Huffpost Blogger]

Actually, I changed into an Obama shirt now and I'm watching past inaugurals on CSPAN.

[realpolitic]

Wasn't that the same type of celebration when we marched into Iraq? We were greeted as liberators. Just kidding!!!!

[realpolitic]

We somehow have to press the Obama administration for investigations into the Bush exploits of torture, listening to our phone calls internationally without warrants, and the firing of attorney generals to name a few. Also, Alberto Gonzalez should not be left off the hook. It is imperative to uncover and prosecute these injustices or else it is a matter of time before they repeat themselves.

[realpolitic]

"So let's all take a little time out today and tomorrow and celebrate the passing of the torch of presidential leadership from the putrid, corrupt and authoritarian rule of a closed-minded frat boy -- to the visionary, progressive leadership of an extraordinarily talented and caring human being!" Well said!

Bush ruled as if the White House was his private country club. No one with any contrary ideas welcome. No one welcome who did not think Bush was delivered to the White House by Jesus. Bush still lives in an America where the poor and those of color are invisible. It is an America unseen for many years. It is an America that is a playground for the wealthy where all rules and regulations for their exploits was eliminated and nothing hampered their profits. Bush ruled over an America which he thought was corrupted by science, knwoledge, and secular forces Bush naively assumed all the world wanted to be little Americans and this thought guided our foreign policy. As I said, Bush and his southern conservative Republican ideology, so out of touch with the rest of us, did innumerable harms. Raparations in a saner world would be in order.

[realpolitic]

I like reading Joseph A. Palermo. I think he is the one person in America who hates the Bush administration as much as I do. The damage caused by Bush's ideological reign is unfathomable. (If Bush administration values stand for "family values," then I want no part of them.)

[Joseph A. Palermo - Huffpost Blogger]

I think you'd like my "Just Go, Mr. Bush. Please, Just Go." blog a while back -- I have to come clean with my readers -- I won't lie to you people and I appreciate all of your comments, but it's true, I really, really, really detest and despise everything about George Walker Bush. I apologize to the more congenial among us.

[johnie2xs]

Don't feel you have to aplogize, Joey. We understand and enjoy each others company because of it.

[realpolitic]

I think I read it, Mr. Palermo. It is the one where you freely admitted a contempt for Bush. I think more in the media should be allowed to do that instead of hiding behind "objectivity" and "balance." The supposed "objectivity" of the media got us eight years of Bush criminality with hardly no tough questions being fired at him. In fact, Bush and Cheney scorned the media and the media cowered. I could not belive Bush was elected the first time with his "deer in the highlights" look and his inability to construct a sentence. Anyway, I agree that Bush almost, almost succeeded in bringing down the entire country. We are almost bankrupt and our economy imploded. But as a testiment to democracy, he failed just short of our collective demise.

[cactusgal]

You can count me in as an American who hates the Bush administration as much as you do, RP. I suspect we're in the millions, but it seems like a lot of folks are having a problem using the word "hate" these days. I'm not one of them.

[peterg76]

Celebrate, yes, but the day after remember than undeserved hero-worship was part of what enabled the Bush Dark Age.