As we near the inevitable victory of all backward Bush watches, 26 days and counting, its not hard to predict that GWB will be in the running for worst President in US history, but beyond that, everyone's crystal
balls will get cloudy. Its going to be very hard for Obama, on his first State of the Union Speech, to stand up and tell the American public that the State of the Union is strong. As Obama inherits some of the bleakest prospects since FDR first took office.
In many ways, I think the GWB era will mark the high water mark for the American conservative movement, as they realized what they had been dreaming and scheming for for over half a century. Sadly the PNAC, the Project for a New American Century turned into anything but, as GWB&co has greatly damaged American prospects across the board. And with the passing of an intellectual of the caliber of William F. Buckley, the intellectual conservative movement seems to have passed the torch of all intellectualism to propagandists like Limbaugh and right wing radio. To some extent only Newt Gingrich will remain, a man of some intellect, but as an idea a day, his sins overwhelm his lack of focus insights. To assume that the GOP and the conservative movement will not rebuild itself is probably a falsity, but its somewhat hard to see out out of the current crop of conservative leadership.
As for Cheney, its all too likely that the chess9 comment of . " Only in the movies do the good guys win. Usually, the sonafabitches win, sneering and jeering all the way to the bank." , may describe the end fate of Cheney and a few of his cronies. Morally bankrupt bullies to the end, they delighted in twisting the knife. And given another chance, they would cheerfully do it again.
GWB seems more human at the end, still deep in denial of his failures, he still seems to be finally open to the fact of his failures. And to some extent he seems almost eager to turn the reigns over to Obama while
doing much less than all he can to really screw things up worse in the time remaining. How history will judge GWB is an open question, to some extent he may be viewed like Grant and Harding before him, maybe a charitably basic good man who was cruelly taken in by his advisers, the manipulated but not the manipulator.
But I still have to disagree with chess9 on his other point of " Unfortunately, Americans have a very short attention span, short memories, and are mostly short enough IQ points to put this all together. And many people will say, "Oh, boys will be boys, ha, ha!", and write it off as well-intentioned efforts at saving the Republic."
Given the magnitude of the failures of GWB&co, the American people and the GOP electorate were far ahead of the leaders of the GOP in rejecting GWB&co and all it stood for. It waas no accident that McCain became the GOP nominee simply because he was the harshest critic of GWB&co.
I think in the near future the Jhhnn comment of "I really don't think that the new Admin needs to do much of anything other than opening up the doings of the Bush Admin to public scrutiny via the FOIA.
Then stand back as they're figuratively torn apart and eaten alive." If the GOP comes back with the revisionist history of Palin, I frankly do not think enough of the American people will by it. The onus is on the GOP to confront its own failures, admit them, and come up with new and more responsible messages. That process may indeed take decades as all our crystal balls will be cloudy.
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