If president Bush keeps up the good work, he’ll leave office every bit as popular as Richard Nixon was the day he left. The occasion should be suitably memorialized. (This is assuming Bush actually leaves.)
Incoming presidents don’t customarily use their inaugural addresses to slam their predecessors but in this case there’s really no point in not doing so. And with the 2008 campaign season having begun on November 8 of this year, it’s by no means too soon for candidates to being sketching out their speeches; what then to say about the departed president Bush the Younger?
The obvious place to turn for instruction is Gerald Ford. Aside from the spectacular Whip Inflation Now campaign in which he asked his countrymen to kick inflation’s ass whenever and wherever they found it, Ford’s most memorable moment arrived about two minutes into his presidency when he addressed the nation after he took the oath of office following Nixon’s resignation and said, “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.”
So that line’s taken, but it remains a good starting point.
The simplest thing to do is substitute a word for “nightmare.” My first impulse is “enema,” which I think works well in a couple of contexts: “My fellow Americans, our long national enema is over,” and “George W. Bush is an enema of the state.”
There are no doubt other, more statesman-like formulations and we want to hear them. If you have an offering, please let us know in the comments section for this post. You need not limit yourself to the “long national” format.
One of the other noteworthy remarks in Ford’s address was this: “As we bind up the internal wounds of Watergate, more painful and more poisonous than those of foreign wars, let us restore the golden rule to our political process, and let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate.”
That worked out well, didn’t it.
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The Errant Decider will decide no more!
I have believed for some time that the next President should send Bush, Cheney, Gonzalez, and Rumsfeld to Guantanamo; and allow them access to their lawyers. This will leave them two choices: Proving that their own actions are unlawful, or – staying there.
Either result is acceptable; although I know which I prefer.
Ford believed, as many did at the time, that Watergate was exceptional, and if we forgave and forgot, it wouldn’t happen again. He was a kindly man, and an optimist.
After six long years, our national colostemy bag has been emptied. We can now get about the serious business of cleaning up the overflow.
…
and in closing, I can’t emphasis this enough: On behalf of the American people we’re really, really sorry.
When my friends (or myself) have been liberated of particularly noxious bosses, it usually results in song. Some Wizard of Oz classic, the one about witches. I remember skipping arm in arm at least once.
Not sure that would be befitting the dignity of the highest office though.
I like the idea of song. And having presidential candidates demonstrate their chops certainly wouldn’t damage the integrity of the campaign process.