Ancien Régime's parting shots

Our Fearless Leader gave his final press conference on Monday, his last official attempt to persuade the media that he’s leaving a legacy that’s worth talking about.

What’s interesting to me is that while Bush did admit that prancing about in a flight suit on the Lincoln with a huge “Mission Accomplished” banner behind him was “a mistake”, he characterized such things as “no weapons of mass destruction” and that whole Abu Ghraib thing as “disappointments”. Not "I perverted intelligence operations, lied to the American people and encouraged our armed forces to behave like the Republican Guard so I could take the country to a righteous war that was supposed to be short and victorious, but I obviously miscalculated."

Does that not say it all?

Well, perhaps not. His idea of “doing something different about” Katrina revolved around whether he should have landed Air Force One in New Orleans or Baton Rouge (instead of, you know, just being photographed looking down from on high). Doesn’t seem to occur to him that “something different” might have involved taking action before the hurricane struck, getting FEMA’s ducks in a row, etc.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that he ducked the whole Guantanamo Bay/torture/abrogation of the Constitution thing and chose to bleat on and on about how that and waging unilateral war on Iraq may have damaged the US’s moral standing in the world “amongst some of the elite”, but it appears that our little third-world brothers (who perhaps may not have Internet access) still love us. (No, he didn’t use those terms; he said we should "go to Africa...ask Africans" and "go to India...and ask" and "go to China and ask". I'm not making this up.)

Apparently it’s just those snooty Euros who are holding us accountable for behaving like Nazis.

Well, he leaves office the same way he entered: clueless, arrogant and a true-believer.

I’m thinking of sending President-elect Obama a shed-load of sage to burn throughout the White House and OEOB, to clear out some of that really bad karma.