George W. Bush gave a speech in Wichita, in which he said that he "conducted [his] Presidency accordingly."
Indeed.
Congress agreed to attack Iraq because they were lied to by Bush and Dick "deficits don't matter" Cheney. The UN voted on that resolution to use force because they were lied to by Colon Powell, who at least had the good sense to apologize.
Anyone willing to defend the Iraq war (which will cost us trillions once we've paid for all the wounded soldier's health care) at this point is an ass. George W. Bush will die believing his own bullshit.
Of course, the Iraq war is just a symptom of the Imperial Bush Presidency and it's massive expansion of unitary executive power, which, of course, no president wants to give up once it's been grabbed. So blaming Obama for using tools that Bush left behind completely ignores the fact that it was Bush who expanded the powers. Or, more realistically, Cheney.
Also, as an Obama voter who will vote strategically for him again, if only to stop people like Bush and Cheney from doing more damage, I'm most upset by the fact that there have been no prosecutions of the Bush Cabal for their admitted ordering of torture in violation of US and International law.
Bush and Cheney had a unique way of ignoring anything awful that might happen, especially if there was some way for their side (the plutocrats) to profit from it. They ignored warnings about Bin Laden before 9-11, and their friends and donors got rich building up the Industrial Military/Intelligence/Security Complex that, of course, can't be cut by a Democrat lest they look weak on defense. So, talk about your extortion.
They ignored the housing bubble (after complaining bitterly about the busted tech bubble Clinton left them with), and in fact fed it steroids by staffing regulatory and enforcement agencies with vampires in charge of the blood banks, and then they bailed all their buddies out with TARP and huge, practically no-interest loans from the Fed.
Bush ignored Katrina. He ignored the environment. He ignored or exacerbated problems in the economy, education, the environment, infrastructure, and just about everything else.
In short, Bush was a disaster. Which, of course works great for the disaster capitalist class that cleans up by taking something that works perfectly well, screwing it up, and selling off the pieces, then tapping pension funds to finance their own golden parachutes. The fact that Bush can speak anywhere without occupy protesters showing up just proves how Republicans taking a big crap on the National Mall and then blaming Obama for it has played out just fine in Wichita.
