I keep seeing stories about Bush's last minute shenanigans, but I haven't been able to bring myself to note them. The tendency is to be happy that Obama won, won cleanly, won convincingly, and that he's shown every sign of being more than ready to lead on day one. The temptation is just to watch (urge!) the clock run out on the worst presidency ever, perhaps daring to believe at this point that even he (and Cheney) might not do anything else dreadful, like bombing Iran, over the next two months.
However, the thing to remember about Bush, even more important than the sudden fondness he developed for playing Commander in Chief guy, is that his primary goal in office has always been to make things ever more cushy for his corporate and country club pals. Ryan Avent puts it succinctly :
You know, president Bush had absolutely nothing to lose in the lame duck session. Not a thing. His reputation is already tarnished beyond repair. His legacy — economic disaster, thousands of lives lost to questionable ends, torture, domestic surveillance, complete inaction on the dire threat of climate change — is set. His future in politics and business is non-existent. There is basically no reason that he couldn’t do whatever he wanted to do with his last few months.
He very easily could have asked Congress to send him a stimulus bill, even a modest one, amid an intensification of what will likely be the worst recession in thirty years, if not longer. It would have made a difference. It would have made the season a little more bearable for the growing numbers of unemployed, and it would have made Obama’s task a little less daunting.
Instead, he’s spending his waning days weakening environmental rules, helping his cronies get jobs in the professional bureacracy, and preparing his pardons. What a stupid, despicable man. History can’t judge him too cruelly
Matt Yglesias quotes part of the above, piles on, and adds some thoughts that spread some of the blame to the so-called "movement conservatives."
In a way, this offers some hope of retribution, at least in an abstract sense. While we'll never be able to punish Bush for anything he's done, nor can we even hope that his conscience will ever overcome his self-delusion and the certain circle of fawners he'll be surrounding himself with for the rest of his life, it does help to think that his atrocious behavior has put a huge black mark on ConservatismTM. This, combined with Obama, gives me long term hope.
But viscerally, I like to picture Bush a few years from now, half-drunk, still without a book deal, sitting in an easy chair in some richly appointed parlor, when the sycophants have momentarily left the room and their chants of praise have faded, suddenly having a really bad moment.
I can only hope there will be plenty of pretzels within reach.
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