More reasons - new and old - to be sad when you hear Mr Bush's name

Kitten deserves credit for discovering both of these articles. Apparently she has not yet figured out how to post. Therefore I will do the honors, as these are not to be missed.

Here is the abstract for the article “So How Come We Haven’t Stopped It?”

“Early in his first term, President Bush received a National Security Council memo outlining the world's inaction regarding the genocide in Rwanda. In what may have been a burst of indignation and bravado, the president wrote in the margin of the memo, ‘Not on my watch.’”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/17/AR2006111701480.html?referrer=emailarticle

I include this not particularly to condemn Mr Bush’s lack of action, although I do find it deplorable. Rather, I find it a pathetic (literally) and almost nauseating testament to the president’s id-oriented thought processes. It reminds me of something I read in TIME a few years back. In March of 2002, supposedly long before we were planning on invading Iraq, Mr Bush walked through a room wherein Dr Rice and three senators were meeting. He overheard Ms Rice mention Mr Hussein, and stopped just long enough to say, “Fuck Saddam. We’re taking him out.” Mr Bush then walked out of the room. Ms Rice turned to the senators—who were dumbstruck—and showed herself a born diplomat. She laughed.

Incidents like these are why I think the far left is all wrong about Mr Bush. He is not the antichrist. He is not even a bad guy. I genuinely think that he sees things like reports on Rwanda or Darfur and thinks—in that moment—“Not on my watch!” and wants to do something about it. Yet this makes him much, much more dangerous. Even an evil person has a certain level of confidence, resolve, rationality, tact, strategy, precision, intelligence, conviction, follow-through—you know, all the things you need to be particularly good at being good OR bad. I am much more startled and terrified of an individual who possesses a throbbing desire to do good while lacking the knowledge, experience, and attention span to achieve his august goals.

Enough of that. The second is of a more mundane, really-should-piss-you-off nature. I’m sure everyone has heard of Mr Bush’s Spectacular Lame Duck Congress Extravaganza! Truckloads of Legislation to be Passed in Just a Few Short Weeks! Come One, Come All, to Watch the Decider Shovel Crow Down the Democrats’ Throats Just Once More Before They Pillory Him!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/16/AR2006111601929.html?referrer=emailarticle

Stuff like this makes me shiver with queasiness. Can I sue an administration for turning me into a bulimic? Or would they simply tell me to stop reading the news?

-W.