A Great American Tragedy

From Wikipedia:

"The banality of evil is a phrase coined by Hannah Arendt and incorporated in the title of her 1963 work Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.[1] It describes the thesis that the great evils in history generally, and the Holocaust in particular, were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths but rather by ordinary people who accepted the premises of their state and therefore participated with the view that their actions were normal."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banality_of_evil

Yup.

Harry Truman left office with dismal approval ratings, but is regarded today as one of America's Greats. Like Bush, Truman took over the office from a very popular president (in his case, Franklin Roosevelt died). He had to make tough decisions about ending the bloodiest war the planet had ever witnessed and saving American lives. He had to face a post-war economy and recession. He barely squeaked out a electoral victory. He also got the US involved in an unpopular war which was basically his political undoing.

We don't know at this exact moment in time how history will look upon George Bush. But all I can say in the here and now is Mr. Bush, you are no Harry Truman.

We all know the crimes by now, so I don't feel any need to list them here. In fact, this post isn't about Bush-bashing, truly. It's about wasted opportunity. And here in the Land of Opportunity, that truly is a tragedy.

Unlike most Americans, I don't think Bush is a stupid guy. Even with wealth and privilege, the odds of a complete moron getting into the White house are slim. And someone who can pull the wool over the eyes of a couple hundred million Americans for a number of years has to have something going on upstairs. But it's the not the self-actualizing intelligence of a thoughtful man, but the cunning of a used car salesman who slaps a coat of paint on a lemon while stealing from the till and bangin' the boss's wife. He had the chance, the privilege, and the HONOR to help his fellow man. He could have been Michael Douglas in The American President. But he wound up being William H. Macy from Fargo.

There are plenty of folks out there more than happy to carry the torches and pitchforks. But I choose to deal with the Bush years with a little sadness. So much time, energy, money, lives, just wasted. He just pissed his potential into the wind. And now we have to clean it up.

But clean it up we shall. We've done it before.