It was earlier this year that I sent a letter to James Inhofe's office telling him what an idiot I thought he was and is.
One of the consequences of that is that now I'm on Republicrazy mailing lists. More and more of them each week.
I get mail from Sharron Angle, from David Vitter, from Newt Gingrich and from John Boehner. The slobbery foam on these mailing pieces has to be seen to be believed.
They all have postage-paid return envelopes, which I fill with shredder waste and drop in the mail. Sharron Angle wouldn't spring for return postage (cheapskate!), so I donated a stamp and wrote "Sharron Angle is a lying, psychopathic weasel" in big letters across the page before mailing it.
Today I went to the mailbox...
...and there was a big blue envelope from the George W. Bush Presidential Center. My bile rose in anticipation.
===============================================================
===============================================================
Great. The George W. Bush Institute of Historical Revisionism.
Remember that the crowning moment of Richard Nixon's presidency came midway through Dubya's reign, when we all started remembering Tricky Dick with fond nostalgia.
George W. Bush's "far-reaching vision of liberty, peace and justice for all..."
Oh, crap.
"...a vision that will be studied and celebrated, passionately promoted and skillfully advanced, at the George W. Bush Presidential Center, which is slated to open to the world in 2013 here in Dallas, Texas."
What'll you bet that there are surveillance cameras in the bathrooms to make sure that Dirty F**king Hippies with permanent markers don't make nasty graffiti and hurt Republican fee-fees?
"On behalf of President and Mrs. Bush, I am pleased to announce that you are among the first Americans selected to join the Freedom Registry, and represent Massachusetts as one of the earliest and most prominent supporters of the George W. Bush Presidential Center."
I was too young to vote for George McGovern the first time. But I voted for him in the 1984 primary, and he got seventeen percent of the vote in Massachusetts.
Massachusetts. I'll be glad to represent Massachusetts at the George W. Bush Presidential Center. We may have had our aberrations, but overall, my state's record is pretty good.
===============================================================
===============================================================
Oh. My name has to be spelled correctly.
I've just changed my name to "Worst President Ever."
Tell you what. I'll give you money...if you guarantee to print my message verbatim in BIG LETTERS where all your visitors can see it.
"We'll show how President Bush kept America safe after the horror of 9/11..."
"We'll make clear how President Bush worked to encourage personal responsibility, and how he understood that compassion was an ideal best practiced by individuals, in their communities — not by government programs."
Like the compassion practiced by his mother:
"Almost everyone I've talked to said we're going to move to Houston. What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. (Said with concern.) Everybody is so overwhelmed by all the hospitality. And so many of the peoples in the arena here, you know, they're underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."
===============================================================
===============================================================
I had forgotten about Donald L. Evans — another conscienceless come-to-Jesus hypocrite with more money than God.
A profile of the Commerce Secretary compiled by Foreign Policy In Focus describes him as "George W. Bush's close friend from West Texas, ... a skilled businessman, fundraiser, and campaign manager."
"Evans...has now known Bush for over 25 years, and has raised money for all of Bush's political campaigns.
FPIF writes that "The two men are very close; soul mates, in fact. It was Evans who, after a George W. binge, steered the future president away from sin and toward Jesus. According to Gail Sheehy, writing in the October, 2000 Vanity Fair, 'In 1985, Don Evans urged Bush to join a new kind of men's group--a franchised Community Bible Study program for men, a precursor to the Promise Keepers.'"
Here's another Donald Evans & George W. Bush story, from 1976, when the idiot son:
...suggested to Don that they head out to the airport and spend a few bucks for a spin over the desiccated Permian Basin in a single-engine Cessna.
{snip}
Evans said he'd love to go flying. At the airport he watched Bush stare at the controls, at the panel, and he realized that Bush — though not admitting it — had no idea how to fly the thing properly. After finally figuring out how to launch the plane, Bush pushed the Cessna hard down the runway. Evans screamed, "Give it some gas!" The Cessna's warning system was blinking and crackling. Bush tried to lift his craft fast, almost as if he were piloting a jet back in the Texas Air National Guard. The plane wobbled into the air, and the unsubtle maneuvering threatened to shove it into a stall. Now the rented plane was rattling in the sky over Midland.
The endless petrochemical complexes, all the aluminum and steel and smoke stacks that pockmark the Permian Basin, were spiking up just below the aircraft. Bush nervously turned to Evans, put his hand on his knee and blurted in his self-mocking West Texas way, "Okay, Evvie, I’ve got it under control."
After more seemingly endless moments, he somehow got control of the plane again. He aimed the aircraft down, and the landing was as shaky and brutal as the takeoff. The plane careened off the runway and onto the desert. Evans sighed in relief. Then an unbelieving Evans braced himself as Bush suddenly and unexpectedly spun the plane and bounced back along the runway. Evans stared at Bush. He could see the fear and panic flooding his face. Bush pressed on. Evans had no idea why Bush wanted to go again. The plane wobbled uncertainly back into the West Texas skies, and Bush turned to Evans. "Hey," said Bush airily, as if he had just had an original, amusing idea, "let's fly around Midland."
The men began cracking up. Bush brought the Cessna back to the airport. It was the last time he flew a plane. Evans would be one of the three people at Bush's side in almost every public venture for the twenty-three years.
Well. I guess that's just the sort of experience that'd make "Evvie" want to head a Presidential Center.
Asshole.
===============================================================
===============================================================
Maybe I'll send them a check for $0.01. Every time they send me a request for money, they'll get a penny. And I'll spit on it.
And MoveOn.org is going to get two thousand pennies.
Because if George W. Bush's presidency was the final rehabilitation of Richard Nixon's, imagine how good Dubya's going to look after four years of Sarah Palin and her vice-president, Richard Cheney?
So keep that junk mail coming, guys. I have too much shredder waste for my compost pile.
And I need to be reminded that the battle isn't over.
I am disappointed with President Obama in many ways. But that disappointment is nothing compared the pain and anger that made Bush 43's tenure in office a gut-twisting, humiliating exercise in frustration and incredulity.
We cannot let them get the upper hand. Donate till it hurts (because it'll hurt a lot worse if we don't).
I'm in a safe district in a safe state. I'm mostly gonna donate, and I'll see if I can do some phonebanking and volunteering, too.
And maybe I'll see you in Washington on October 2nd.
And maybe we can give "Evvie" a scare worse than the one he got over Midland, thirty-four years ago.