David Kurtz today over at TPM ended a post regarding the Pentagon's effort to make public the names of laywers doing pro bono work for Guantanamo detainees:
The Administration has already done virtually everything possible to deny detainees any hope of justice. Encouraging boycotts of the law firms representing detainees is an effort to close off any last chance that the detainees will be treated in accordance with Anglo-American legal standards. Each of us will mark our own low point of the Bush presidency. This is on my short list.
This got me to thinking: what WOULD be at the top of my list for lowest point of the Bush Presidency? There are so many lows, it's hard to choose. There are the really big things, like lying us into Iraq, down to smaller things, like the EPA telling workers and residents of lower Manhattan that the air was safe to breathe at ground zero, to the symbolic acts, like the Mission (not!) Accomplished moment, to the ongoing moments like the dismal support of American troops, to specific acts of policy like vetoing stem cell research, to those minor moments where you see the man behind the curtain ("I'm the decider!") more clearly than you wanted to, to the outright and persistent lies like the one Tony Snow told recently when he revised history to assert that we had "exhausted all diplomatic options in Iraq," etc.etc.etc.etc.etc. and so on ad infinitum
For me, it was early: way back in 2001 when Bush declared "You're either with us, or you're with the enemy." From that moment, I knew it was going to be downhill. I couldn't have imagined how far downhill things would go, but I knew, in no uncertain terms, what kind of person we were dealing with, and where heh would take us, even if I didn't know the specifics.
So Kossacks, weigh in if you have a moment. What is the #1 worst moment of the Bush years (so far!) for you? It doesn't have come direclty from Bush but could include any of his minions of darkness. Big or small, practical or symbolic...what for all of you is the biggest nail in the coffin, the heaviest straw on the camel's back, le mot juste, the coup de gras, the fattest lady singing?