Everyone should have recognized that George W. Bush’s “ranch” in Crawford, Texas, was just a prop — window dressing to make him seem more folksy, down-to-earth, and of course manly.
Unfortunately, many took this faux ranch at face value — just as Bush assumed ignorant Republicans would — and assumed that Bush wasn’t really the spoiled, privileged rich kid. Now that he’s leaving elected office without any hope of ever having power again, he’s already leaving the ranch. Didn’t take him long, did it?
How long will it be before he sells it? He only bought it when he started running for president in 1999, so it’s not like there is any reason to waste time abandoning the former pig farm.
… people will believe what they want to believe.
If they can make FDR the cause of the Great Depression, they can do anything. But one thing progressives can do is make sure that the story of the Bush administration is told, in all respects. There’s going to be huge pressure from the usual suspects to let bygones be bygones, to forget about everything from torture to reckless disregard of financial warnings.
But I want truth and reconciliation across the board, and progressives have to make it clear that it was an ideology, not an act of God, that made this crisis possible. – Paul Krugman’s depression economics
Let us have madness openly.
O’ men Of my generation.
Let us follow
The footsteps of this slaughtered age:
See it trail across Time’s dim land
Into the closed house of eternity
With the noise that dying has,
With the face that dead things wear–
nor ever say
We wanted more; we looked to find
An open door, an utter deed of love,
Transforming day’s evil darkness;
but We found extended hell and fog Upon the earth,
and within the head
A rotting bog of lean huge graves. – Kenneth Patchen