December 28, 2008: Cries of the Damned, Tragical History Tour, If the Shoe Fits

“You have a frightening smile Dianna”, said Tom Ballard to his friend Dianna Trent in the BBC sitcom “Waiting for God”. “When you open your mouth it is like openning the gates of Hell; Whenever you laugh one can smell the burning sulphur and hear the cries of the damned”.

So one could describe the forced grin of 'Ol Two-Cows as he makes his not so unapologetic tour in a last-ditch effort to burnish the record of his miserable presidency. One should also note the look of complete bewilderment and non-comprehension in his eyes as he casts about finding reasons to justify his misbegotten tenure in office. He simply doesn't get it. Poor George simply doesn't understand that it is not generally seen as an act of compassion, intelligence, or strength to lie a nation into war, gut the national economy, and preside over the drowning of a major city. Instead he looks at us as if we don't get it!

“you're out of touch my baby
my poor unfaithful baby.... The Rolling Stones “Out of Touch”

As the clock winds down on both a watershed political year and the bastard presidency of George W. ('Ol Two-Cows) Bush, America—indeed the world—is staring into an abyss the depths of which can only be exceeded by Dubya's malignant soul, now deeply buried somewhere in Dante's seventh level of hell. It was reported this month that in November the nation had shed over half a million jobs, one in ten homeowners have either lost their homes or are about to face foreclosure. The nation's inflation rate is inching up, the decline of gasoline prices from nearly five dollars to a dollar and a half a gallon notwithstanding. Wall street continues to reel from losses and scandal as Bernie Madoff (yes Bernie Made Off) has been arrested for reportedly bilking shareholders (principally targeting Jewish non-profits) out of half a billion dollars in what amounted to a giant ponzi scheme. Meanwhile, true to form, the administration cannot account for what has become of the 350 billion dollars that was thrown at the Wall Street crowd that created this mess in the first place. What has been certain is that much of the money went to stockholders and the investor class in dividends, much of it went for mergers and acquisitions, almost none of it has gone to freeing up the credit markets upon which this country now depends. 'Ol Two-Cows has now spent, in dollars adjusted for inflation, more money than it took to build the interstate highway system, fight the Civil War, World War I and the Depression combined and has not created a single job. In fact we are now hemorrhaging jobs faster than at anytime since the demobilization of the military after the Second World War. Our auto industry, once the pride of the country is teetering on the verge of collapse with sales down nearly 40% and Chrysler and General Motors temporarily closing thirty plants and warning that they must have some kind of financial relief or face imminent bankruptcy.

“Two-Cows” predictable response has been to rush to the aid of the investor class and leave the working class twisting in the wind. This week he was on television saying that he hadn't made up his mind about signing the auto bailout package but then quickly adding that he was worried that to fail to act would not reassure the markets. It's always the markets with George, never the people. Always the investor, never the worker. Whenever George opens his mouth you can hear the cries of the damned. And damned if he ain't.

It has been reported that deep inside the bowels of the White House the Goppites have formed a “Bush Legacy Project”. This is an effort to organize subalterns around the talking points of the day so as to get a head start on refurbishing the Bush image and in so doing burnish the Bush legacy. He knows that he will emerge with the lowest approval rating since such records have been kept. Bush will have surpassed even “Tricky” Dick Nixon in sounding the depths of political purgatory. Unlike Nixon, who could pawn himself off as something of a foreign policy guru, “Two-Cows” has no such assets upon which to bank a political comeback. Nevertheless we have Condy Rice stumping the talk-shows praising Bush for his far-sighted foreign policy, and First Lady Laura Bush making similar appearances to downplay the tragedy in New Orleans saying that it wasn't as bad as was reported. There are two salient points regarding this latest “Tragical History Tour”, the first is that the rescumlicans are once again going about the business of smearing the historical record, the second is that once again Bush and Cheney are having someone else—this time the womenfolk-- do the heavy lifting.

So far the American public is not buying it. Neither, it seems, is the world. Getting little traction—except on Fox Noise—the Idiot-in-Chief” momentarily fled the country showing up in Baghdad to commune with the troops and his Iraqi puppets. There for all the world to see, Bush and Malaki were holding a joint news conference to tell the world about all the splendid progress being made when an Iraqi reporter shouting at the “Great Decider” managed to throw both his shoes at the president, barely missing his target before being quickly ushered off to a local dungeon. In such esteem is this president held that domestic reaction within the United States to such treatment of our head of state ranged from mild consternation to bemused laughter. While the miscreant in Baghdad may do some serious jail time, George “Dubya” 'Ol Two-Cows Bush is being laughed off the stage. Meanwhile there were demonstrations in which thousands of Iraqi's gathered in support of the protester and the manufacturer of his shoes reportedly has had to hire at least another one hundred workers to meet the skyrocketing demand. As Jimmy Durante would say, “everybody wants to get in on the act “ or, in the words of Curley Howard, 'if the foo shits wear it”.