Down In Front!

Despite the ongoing snark-level-red threat of an unwelcome intruder interrupting tonight's Neocon Porno Pity Party, the Bicycle Chief vows to keep farewelling until he gets it right!

From Gail Collins:

Tonight President George W. Bush bids adieu to the American people.

Excitement mounts.

The man has been saying goodbye for so long, he’s come to resemble one of those reconstituted rock bands that have been on a farewell tour since 1982. We had exit interviews by the carload and then a final press conference on Monday, in which he reminisced about his arrival on the national stage in 2000. “Just seemed like yesterday,” he said.

I think I speak for the entire nation when I say that the way this transition has been dragging on, even yesterday does not seem like yesterday. And the last time George W. Bush did not factor into our lives feels like around 1066.
...

Why?

Because he led the Greatest Administration Evah!

From the News Hour:

MR. LEHRER: One more general scope here, Mr. Vice President. What do you make of a current suggestion that you have been in fact the most powerful vice president in history, but in one of the most failed presidencies in history?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: I don't buy that.

MR. LEHRER: You don't buy that?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: No, I think the argument that this is a failed presidency is just dead wrong. I think we'll hear that from some of our critics, but when I look back at what we've been able to do - we dealt with big issues.

We didn't deal with school uniforms...

Translation: Social Programs are for fags. Real men slaughter people. Lots and lots and lots of people. Then they wipe the blood up with the Bill of Rights. Then they go on teevee and brag about it.

MR. LEHRER: But, Mr. Vice President, people would say back to you, wait a minute, you govern in the present, not about what some historian is going to say 50 years from now. The idea, in a democratic society, of having a - the disapproval of an overwhelming majority of the American people - does that work?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: That's what elections are for, Jim. And as I say, we went out and stood for election and we reelected comfortably. But you cannot, in these circumstances especially, start worrying about the polls in terms of whether or not you're going to make these tough decisions.

...
This president did it; I think he did it very well. I think he's been tough and aggressive when he needed to be, and been willing to take the political heat, which is more important, in my opinion, than being loved.

MR. LEHRER: More important than having the approval of the people who elected you?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, how do you want to go out and measure that? Do you want to go out and poll and say, gee, we aren't up to 70 percent yet, we'd better not make any tough decisions here? I mean, you cannot be driven by the polls. The polls change all the time; they're easily manipulated by whoever wants to ask those poll questions; they go up; they go down.

The Cheney Metric: 70% of Americans are idiots who need my iron boot on their throats. Fuck them. As long as the stone-batshit-crazy Christopath 27%-ers love us, we're Doin' It Rite!

MR. LEHRER: So it doesn't trouble you at all to be leaving office next week with the overwhelming disapproval of the majority of the people, as measured by the polls? It doesn't bother you, personally?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: I don't buy that. No, first of all - I don't buy that. And I find, when I get out and talk with people, that that's not the unanimous view, as you would have it.
...

Maybe he believes this because Cheney only speaks in front of people he can order to applaud him, and fire when they don't sufficiently kiss his ass.

Then again, maybe he believes this because Cheney is a liar.

MR. LEHRER: What about in the domestic area? What of the economy? The economic downturn is on scope or on a par with the Great Depression. Was it not a miscalculation or a failure to see that coming?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: No, I don't think it was a miscalculation. I think we had good economic policies, especially in the early years. I think the tax packages we passed in '03, for example, produced 52 months - uninterrupted months of job growth.

We've run into trouble recently, obviously, beginning in '08 because of the financial crisis, as well as the recession, but those are not U.S. problems alone. Those are global problems, those are problems that have affected nations and economies all over the world; that's not something that is just a U.S. problem. As I look at it, I think we've been successful at intervening -

MR. LEHRER: On the economy you've been successful?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: We've been successful at intervening economically with respect to the financial crisis, in that what we did with respect to TARP by moving as aggressively as we did, that there is, in fact, positive progress. We stabilized, if you will, the financial system out there. Now, there's still a lot of work to be done, yet, but the inter-bank lending rate's back down where it belongs, interest rates are low - all of these things are moves in the right direction.
...

MR. LEHRER: What about - going back to the original question - about seeing this coming? Isn't that part of the stewardship of the president, of the vice president and of his administration - to see these things coming and try to prevent them from coming, rather than to act after they've happened?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Did you see it coming, Jim? You're an expert.

MR. LEHRER: I'm not the president or the vice president of the United States.

MR. LEHRER: So you don't accept any responsibility for - on the -

VICE PRES. CHENEY: I don't think we caused the economic downturn.
...

Unless it comes screaming in on hijacked aircraft and blows up buildings before our eyes, our culture sucks at coping with evil. When it comes in a suit and an important title and looks like grandpa, we just don't believe it, even when it comes right up and sinks its teeth into our faces.

Cheney is evil, and expecting him to show a flicker of remorse or a glimmer of honesty is ridiculous; he says that, other than getting busted torturing a few of the wrong people, the Bush Administration performed faultlessly these last eight years, because that is exactly what he believes.

“You take the lies out of him, and he'll shrink to the size of your hat;
you take the malice out of him, and he'll disappear.”

-- Mark Twain

In five days the Bush Freak Show will pack up and leave, and millions of us will celebrate like I-don't-know-what.

But there are no term limits on Stupid, and the fulminating "Always wrong but never in doubt" 27%-ers who believe that George W. Bush was the greatest President in history will still be with us the next day.

And the day after.

And the day after that.

And for the rest of our lives.