by Morrow Hall

Created on: June 11, 2008

Villian? Not really. Try failure.

Visionary? You must be kidding. How about blind?

I still feel that President Bush Jr's greatest failure was his choice to invade Iraq without provocation. By doing so, he broke a tradition as old as our country, that we, the United States, do not start wars. I was told this in grade school, and have always felt it to be one of my country's greatest principles.

Yes, I know, there have been some pretty thin excuses for some of our past military actions. The Mexican War, the Spanish-American War (Remember the Maine?), and the invasion of Grenada come to mind.

But this time the excuse, the imminent deployment of weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein, was a thin lie. Soon it was replaced by one after another questionable excuses. I don't even remember what the last one was.

There are those who blame Congress for allowing Bush to proceed in this invasion, but they forget the scare tactics Bush used to get its acquiescence. Presumably, the president knows things that no one else does, and when he asks for help to combat a deadly threat, it's hard to say no. Now we all know there was no such threat, but the invasion and occupation wear on.

Bush also trashed our economy, a fact that becomes more obvious each day.

His tax cuts for the very wealthy, for which the Republican Congress must be held accountable as well, tied a bow on Ronald Reagan's program to shrink the middle class. His efforts to privatize more and more activities of government, and to reduce business accountability and regulation, have been wildly successful. His refusal to pay for his wars through taxation has helped to devalue the dollar and accumulate the largest debt in history.

I think the man actually believes that his efforts are hastening the arrival of Armageddon, and thence the "Rapture," when God will pluck him and his fellow Christians out of this vale of tears, so the debt won't matter anyhow, will it? I find that very scary.

Despite his and his fellow Republicans' boasts of "fiscal responsibility," the past seven-plus years have been the biggest hog slop in the history of our country. His has outdone the McKinley administration in blatant corruption.

His absurd "War on Terr" has been the excuse for vast encroachment on the civil, political, and religious rights our Constitution guarantees and human morality demands. The ghastly images of Abu Ghraib will always remind us of his disastrous incumbency.

His "No Child Left Behind" program has succeeded in penalizing schools for the inadequacies of parents, parents who were themselves children left behind.

And while he has been quick to say no to many attempts to improve our lives, from stem-cell research to the Children's Health Insurance Program, he has done little to lead us forward. The same challenges that faced us when he took office are still with us. They have only gotten worse.

George Bush, Jr. has defeated all challengers for the title of Worst President Ever. It is my fervent hope that he will keep this title for many, many years to come.

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