Glad to see him go

Juan Cole has numerous choice words as Bush prepares to depart:

... W. was just another spoiled rich kid who refused to grow up and threw up on the shoes of the rest of us while singing the praises of brutal militarism and unrestrained capitalism.

...

W. is a frightful combination of ignorant, dull, and pigheaded when to succeed in the Middle East he needed to be well-informed, bright and intellectually agile.

Those were my stomping grounds; I knew them the way W. knows Houston. But when I objected to his policies at this little weblog, my mailbox was flooded with hate mail from people who thought W. knew best about the Middle East. As if you could get experience, knowledge and wisdom about the world from 20 years of bar hopping in Texas. Did the man even have a passport?

It is a rather wonderful, if dispiriting, tour of the Bush legacy. I believe we need to lay these word to heart.

We have the opportunity now, to choose truth over propaganda, responsibility over recklessness, compassion over brutality, altruism over self-interest, and ability over incompetence. We have the opportunity to repudiate the past 8 years, and to transcend them once and for all, to redeem ourselves as a nation.

Savor the writing by reading the whole thing here.

--the BB