Farewell to Georgie!!

George Bush, the 43rd President of the United States gave his farewell address last night. I was on the phone with my mom who said (a la Richard Nixon) that we'll miss GWB once he's gone because we won't have anyone to scapegoat anymore.

Now I tend to agree with my mother on a lot of political issues. As a Conservative, I think she offers a perspective that I wouldn't often consider, and in doing so she usually opens up my opinions on a topic to include both the left and the right. But I have to say that when you look at Georgie's farewell speech and compare it to Clinton's in 2001 you are reminded of two things: 1) the power of the collective memory - Nixon is still as despised as ever, Clinton loved, for example - and of course 2) the level of severity with which Bush screwed up. Now I'm typically not a Bush-basher. I actually think he's a brilliant politician and a brilliant strategist (in accomplishing his own goals mind you... He just seems bad at it if your goals differ from his). But every 4 years in January, we have a chance to look back, and Bush's speech last night, when compared to Clinton's assurance in 2001 that if we stayed on his economic course we would be debt free by the end of the decade (2009), really silenced most of my positive compliments for George Bush. He was a great politician, but a terrible President and he will not be missed.

George Bush, 2009, explaining how things went south:

Bill Clinton, 2001, explaining how things can keep going well:

The Monday Screw

The Monday Screw

Usually we talk about (often hilarious/amazing) tales of us getting screwed over. And no doubt there's a-plenty of stories about us getting the screw to constitute months and months and years and years of The Monday Screw. But todays was just so juicy, I'm going to have to put our stories on hold for a week.

So Barack Obama is supposed to be President on January 20th, right? Just wondering if anyone remembers that, because apparently it's slipped the collective mind of the Bush White House.

CHICAGO—The White House has turned down a request from the family of President-elect Barack Obama to move into Blair House in early January so that his daughters can start school on January 5.

The Obamas were told that Blair House, where incoming presidents usually stay in the five days before Inauguration Day, is booked in early January, a spokesperson to the Obama transition said. “We explored the idea so that the girls could start school on schedule,’ the spokesperson said. “But, there were previously scheduled events and guests that couldn’t be displaced.”

It remained unclear who on Bushes guest list outranked the incoming President.

Um, so yeah, someone is going to feel pretty stupid when they get back from vacation and find out that their intern Dwayne denied the incoming President of the United States one of the 132 rooms in the White House. "Oh wait, they meant that Barack Obama!?"

It seems like every  institution in Washington is getting pretty strict about renting out rooms come Inauguration time.