http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/18922THE GREAT SHAME: Bush's legacy is our failure
by Allan Uthman | November 28, 2008
When the networks projected an Ohio win for Obama on November 4th, I counted up the remaining states, and realized that Obama was going to win. Like a lot of people that night, I wanted to celebrate. I gladly turned off the TV and went out to get drunk.
As they were everywhere, people were out in the streets of Buffalo, NY, too that night. Shouting, singing, crying, forming impromptu drum circles and dance troupes. Strangers hugging each other, cars honking as they crawled by—this was unprecedented behavior in the Queen City, where the people generally exude a dull aura of eternal defeat. Maybe this was what it would look like if the Bills actually won a Super Bowl.
Of course, people were celebrating Obama’s victory, but I think the main source of jubilation was that the end of the Bush administration, and Republican rule, was finally in sight. There were many cries of “Obama!” that night, but there were just as many people expressing a superlative relief, like a long over-strained muscle finally relaxing, that our long national nightmare was finally over.
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Bush lied about Iraq; it’s nothing if not clear at this point. And what the hell did we do about it? Bush failed miserably in New Orleans, dashing the image of Republican competence. But what did we do about it? Even now, as Bush’s economic team fools us into pouring an insane, gargantuan amount of money into the largest banks in the world, pulling a classic scare-and-switch tactic we should all be familiar with by now, nobody even murmurs about holding him accountable. As we all hold our breath and wait for Obama to take office, we allow the most craven, criminal administration in American history to keep right on pillaging our laws, our money, and our collective sense of decency right to the end. We, as a nation, are a miserable failure.
It’s just not enough that it will soon be over. It’s not enough that we managed to get through it. It’s not enough that the Republicans are in disarray, apparently headed toward a schism. These people should be in jail. They should serve as an example to all who come after them, that there is only so much corruption, malfeasance, and rank incompetence that this nation will put up with. Instead, their scot-free exit signals the impotence of this country in the face of an all-out hijacking of its government.
So sure, celebrate a victory for relative sanity in Obama’s win. But at the same time, we should be lamenting an all-out defeat for accountability. An eight-year crime wave has swept through the most powerful democracy in the world, and the only people being punished are you and me. And maybe we deserve it, because the true failure is ours.