Please Say You're Sorry!

President Bush is a forgotten man. Giving his last State of the Union speech, he was overshadowed by a tempest in a teapot. (Did Barack Obama snub Hillary Clinton or merely turn to talk with another senator?) We need a breather from the campaign, so we will focus on why history is likely to record George W. Bush's eight years in office as a failed presidency. Ideology has nothing to do with it; Bush had the opportunity to be a great president. After 9/11, Bush could have become a great leader. But the very day that hell spewed from the skies, Bush did not know whether or not to return from Florida to Washington. His eventual leadership in those terrible weeks was steadfast but he used up the good will of most of the world by pushing his doctrine of preemption. Invading Iraq on false pretenses, he has overseen a war that has lasted longer than our participation in World War II with far less to show for it. Bush's contribution to education (aside from mangled syntax) has been the No Child Left Behind Act. But it has amounted to an unfunded mandate on the states and embroiled thousands in angry confrontation by making teachers teach only what children need to pass tests and forcing cutbacks in such subjects as art and music. Bush leaves the country with a $9.2 trillion debt, largely because of the war in Iraq, which he defends against all criticism. In an infuriating gesture, he waited until this month , seven years too late, to declare war on earmarks, the congressional practice of quietly tucking money away in the budget for special home-state projects. Not a thing has been done to help people with no health insurance, but he vetoed a plan to expand children's access to health care. He vows to cut out 151 popular programs to save $18 billion but has spent $609 billion on Iraq and Afghanistan. He demanded that Social Security be privatized, but when the country vigorously protested, he gave up trying to keep entitlements from eventual meltdown. With the nation fighting to stave off recession as food and energy prices soar and home foreclosures mount, he didn't have his own stimulus plan but endorsed a too-little-too-late plan devised in the House to give taxpayers rebate checks and incentives to businesses. Bush's foreign policy dissolved into gauzy nothingness, victim of the endless war in Iraq. His legacy will be insisting, without factual basis, that democracy would spring "sui generis" to life in the Middle East and that Iran, Iraq and North Korea were an "axis of evil." With evidence indisputable that the world faces a serious challenge in global warming, Bush abrogated what should have been U.S. leadership to deflect tomorrow's catastrophe. With debate raging over immigration, Bush could not even stake out a leadership position in his own party. Having stirred up a hornet's nest on the issue, he went inside the house and left it to others to deal with the stingers. Hurricane Katrina and the bridge collapse in Minneapolis were stark testimony to the nation's crumbling infrastructure. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez chatted, joked and sang with Cuba's new leader Raul Castro on Sunday and promised to continue supporting the country despite the retirement of his close friend Fidel Castro. The Pentagon said Monday it has a "high degree of confidence" that the missile fired at a dead U.S. spy satellite in space destroyed the satellite's fuel tank as planned. Based on debris analysis it is clear that the Navy missile destroyed the fuel tank, "reducing, if not eliminating, the risk to people on Earth from the hazardous chemical." The presence of the hydrazine was cited by U.S. officials as the main reason to shoot down the satellite—which would otherwise have fallen out of orbit on its own in early March. Pentagon officials had said almost immediately after the shootdown by a missile fired from the USS Lake Erie that it appeared the tank had been hit squarely. Raul Castro was named president of communist Cuba on Sunday, ending his brother Fidel Castro's 49-year rule but keeping the country on a communist path. No title for the album has been announced. V