W's Last Day
Just a reminder to enjoy the last day of W. He spent two full years of his presidency on vacation, but still managed to cause more than his fair share of trouble.
Harper's has put together an excellent, indexed retrospective of the Bush years (via Daring Fireball) and The Economist did a fantastic job recapping his body of work in their article George Bush's legacy: The frat boy ships out. Some highlights:
HE LEAVES the White House as one of the least popular and most divisive presidents in American history. At home, his approval rating has been stuck in the 20s for months; abroad, George Bush has presided over the most catastrophic collapse in America’s reputation since the second world war. The American economy is in deep recession, brought on by a crisis that forced Mr Bush to preside over huge and unpopular bail-outs.
America is embroiled in two wars, one of which Mr Bush launched against the tide of world opinion. The Bush family name, once among the most illustrious in American political life, is now so tainted that Jeb, George’s younger brother, recently decided not to run for the Senate from Florida. A Bush relative describes family gatherings as “funeral wakes”. . . .
Lack of curiosity also led Mr Bush to suspect intellectuals in general and academic experts in particular. David Frum, who wrote speeches for Mr Bush during his first term, noted that “conspicuous intelligence seemed actively unwelcome in the Bush White House”. . . .
Relentless partisanship led to the politicisation of almost everything Mr Bush did. He used his first televised address to justify putting strict limits on federal funding for stem-cell research, and used the first veto of his presidency to prevent the expansion of that funding. He appointed two “strict constructionist” judges to the Supreme Court, John Roberts and Samuel Alito, turned his back on the Kyoto protocol, dismissed several international treaties, particularly the anti-ballistic-missile treaty, loosened regulations on firearms and campaigned against gay marriage. His energy policy was written by Mr Cheney with the help of a handful of cronies from the energy industry. His lacklustre attorney-general Alberto Gonzales, who was forced to resign in disgrace, was only the most visible of an army of over-promoted, ideologically vetted homunculi.
The Iraq war was a case study of what happens when politicisation is mixed with incompetence. A long-standing convention holds that politics stops at the ocean’s edge. But Mr Bush and his inner circle labelled the Democrats “Defeaticrats” whenever they were reluctant to support extending the war from Afghanistan to Iraq. They manipulated intelligence to demonstrate that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and had close relations with al-Qaeda. This not only divided a country that had been brought together by September 11th; it also undermined popular support for what Mr Bush regarded as the central theme of his presidency, the war on terror.
And that's just the beginning. Read the rest here.
If you want to follow the Inaugural gala and participate online, some friends have helped set up a fantastic site dedicated to the occassion. Says the San Jose Mercury News:
LINK-live Presidential Inaugural Gala, Tuesday night:
It's billed as a party to celebrate technology serving humanity. Steven Chu, Lawrence Berkeley's Nobel laureate physicist and Obama's choice for energy secretary, is slated to receive "the nature award." You can attend virtually via www.linklive.org. And you can join the celebration online using Twitter (name: linklive; address: #linklive2009), ScribbleLive, Ustream and Flickr. We think we've got tickets, and would hate to miss Chu, the Bay Area's hottest — or is that coolest? — scientist.
Frost, Nixon, Cheney and McNamara
Caught Frost/Nixon yesterday. It's the most entertaining film about the making of an interview that you're likely to see.* Yes, the interview is important, but director Ron Howard made the issues around funding, preparation and distribution as close to a suspense-filled story as is reasonably possible.
The key moment of the 1977 interview, and the key to this film, is Nixon's response to questions about Watergate. The only time he answered direct questions about Watergate, Nixon stated that he made mistakes, likely broke laws, tarnished the office of the President specifically and our system of democracy generally, but still believed that anything a President does to serve his country is legal.
I'm interested in seeing how the movie's portrayal stacks up to the real interviews, released on DVD earlier this month. I also want to check out Charlie Rose's interviews about the movie with Ron Howard and Frank Langella, the actor portraying Nixon in the dramatization.
Having just returned from watching the movie, I opened my Wind and pointed Chrome to the NY Times. One of their top stories discussed the exit interviews being given by President Bush and Vice President Cheney. While Bush at least admits that he was unprepared for war, Cheney is completely unapologetic.
Mr. Cheney, by contrast, is unbowed, defiant to the end. He called the Supreme Court “wrong” for overturning Bush policies on detainees at Guantánamo Bay; criticized his successor, Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.; and defended the harsh interrogation technique called waterboarding, considered by many legal authorities to be torture.
“I feel very good about what we did,” the vice president told The Washington Times, adding, “If I was faced with those circumstances again, I’d do exactly the same thing.”
It's been said many times before, but Cheney believes that the President is above the law when serving his country. I think Cheney would say that the executive must be unfettered by the law when protecting America... but the result is the same either way. In fact, it's clear that Cheney believes Nixon didn't go far enough, that he never should have felt guilty or admitted to anything.
Today, Cheney, the most powerful Vice President in U.S. history, says he has no advice for VP-elect Biden, and clearly states that he authorized torture (or, as is the official term, "enhanced interrogation") of "terror suspects." He characterizes his decision as making the hard choice, and asks us to take it on faith that his action has made America safer.
Assuming that Cheney's statement is correct, even Nixon would ask: what point is there in acting to protect America if that act undercuts the very tenents upon which the country has been built and claims to hold high for the world as its banner ideals?
* If you saw and enjoyed Frost/Nixon, you'll also enjoy Fog of War, the brilliant film by Errol Morris centering around his interviews with Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense under President Kennedy.
[Image via If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats.]
Get Your Own 'Bush Shoes'
Mr. Baydan's Ducati Model 271, preparing for takeoff.
The NY Times has a great little piece about the shoe thrown at the President. Though it's origins are contested, a Turkish cobbler claims that he's the designer of the now infamous shoe... and orders are pouring in.
Mr. Baydan insists he recognizes his shoes. Given their light weight, just under 11 ounces each, and clunky design, he said he was amazed by their aerodynamics. Both shoes rocketed squarely at Mr. Bush’s head and missed only because of deft ducks by the president. . . . “We have been producing that specific style, which I personally designed, for 10 years, so I couldn’t have missed it, no way,” said Ramazan Baydan, a shoemaker in Istanbul. “As a shoemaker, you understand.”
...
[O]rders for Mr. Baydan’s shoes, formerly known as Ducati Model 271 and since renamed “The Bush Shoe,” have poured in from around the world. . . . A new run of 15,000 pairs, destined for Iraq, went into production on Thursday, he said. A British distributor has asked to become the Baydan Shoe Company’s European sales representative, with a first order of 95,000 pairs, and an American company has placed an order for 18,000 pairs. Four distributors are competing to represent the company in Iraq, where Baydan sold 19,000 pairs of this model for about $40 each last year.
I'm guessing that the prices will be going up to match the increased demand.
Want to learn more? Check out Mr. Baydan's online showcase at Baydan Shoes. Even if you don't want a Bush Shoe, this is a mighty nice collection.
If The Shoe-Thrower Were A SF Giant Pitcher
- Had Barry Zito thrown the shoe, it would have floated lightly toward W. Our President could finally have declared victory over something, as he'd have swung and crushed the shoe, launching it over the entire press corps. Still, most Iraqis would have said that Zito was such a nice guy that they appreciated the effort, even if he wasn't worth the big contract. Besides, Zito's still a lefty whose columns take up a vast swath of column-inches.
- Noah Lowry would have hurt himself.
- NL Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum wouldn't have been allowed in. Security would have thought he was one of the reporters' kids.*
- Jonathan Sanchez would have missed badly, high and outside.
- Matt Cain would have been dead-on with the first shoe, but another journalist would have stood up and gotten in the way. Unlucky. If he had time to throw his second shoe, though, it would have hit W square in the smacker.
* Had Lincecum somehow been let in, the first shoe thrown would have bored a hole in W's chest. That shoe, thrown with such extreme velocity, would have instantly cauterized the fatal wound. The Phenom would have used the second shoe to disarm and disable all of the Secret Service agents in the room, allowing him to escape.
Still, the rest of the Press Corps would be unable to follow through after Lincecum's super-human performance. They'd fail to score and would give up the game winning homer to Cheney with a fat pitch down the pipe in the top of the 8th.