While digging through some old posts, I ran across one that seems worth reviving to send staggering through the blogosphere, like a zombie dragging unpleasantness thought safely buried....
Remember 2009, the inauguration, the optimism breaking out - and the anticipation that so much that was wrong was going to be cleaned up? Instead there seems to be collective amnesia - conveniently so for those who foisted W on us in the first place, and all those who thought we'd go forth in bipartisanship to get America working again.
Yeah, right. Follow me over the Orange Omnilepticon for a flash from the past: Breaking: Incoming Obama Team Discovers Widescale Vandalism and Looting by Departing Bushies
Still with me? Here goes - most of the links still work too.
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Washington, D.C.
Even as crowds throng the nation's capital celebrating the inauguration of the country's first Hawaiian-American president, reports are beginning to surface of widescale vandalism and looting by the departing Bush administration. An unnamed spokesperson for the Obama transition team who was visibly shaken offered some comments.
"On the basis of just the quick first look, I am absolutely appalled at the damage we have uncovered. It is going to take decades to deal with this mess. Every time we turn over another rock, there's something worse underneath. Seriously, this is not a job for anyone with a weak stomach.
Speaking off the record at one of the many inaugural balls, the spokesperson began painting a picture of wide scale devastation. A crowd gathered, both enthralled and horrified.
"Maybe some of you remember when Clinton left office, there was a surplus? I guess I don't have to tell you that's history. (pdf) Just about every corner of the economy is in ruins. Jobs, manufacturing, health care, you name it, it's taken a hit. The only bright spot - if you can call it that - is that with the job market so bad, at least the Pentagon is finding it easier to get recruits. Of course, if we weren't bogged down in two wars that have saddled us with trillions of dollars of debt, we'd not be facing so many tough choices.
On the environmental front, it's hard to find any good news. Our air is not better, neither is our water, and it's not a real good time to be any kind of endangered specie.
Members of the crowd muttered "Yeah, Go Sarah!" and "Kill, baby, kill!" in a sardonic parody of GOP campaign rhetoric.
Another member of the crowd who wished to remain anonymous remarked "You think that's bad? I have friends who are career DOJ people. They're sick of working in just another Bush turkey farm, with partisan Dead Enders still trying to carry out a political jihad, or just walking away from the mess they've created."
A frazzled-looking partygoer spoke up: "Mess? You want to talk about messes? Take a look at my 401K - if you can find it. I don't even know what bank is managing my accounts any more - they're too busy buying each other out while looking over their shoulder terrified the Federal Government will start asking questions about what they're really doing with the bailout money. Thank God they didn't get their hands on Social Security!"
"Yeah," a woman chimed in, "and while they're partying on our dime, their stooges are telling us we have to sacrifice our pay and 'entitlements' because it would be fiscally irresponsible for the government to help non-bankers out because times are tough. We're not starving hard enough I guess. I say we should listen to that guy who wants us to invade the Caymans!"
At this point the transition team spokesperson got the crowd's attention again. "People, people - we all know why we're here, and how big the job is going to be. Tonight let's celebrate while we can, and then tomorrow go out into the cold light of morning to start turning this thing around.
It may not seem that way now, but in a way we are blessed. Everyone has now seen what happens when the country listens to the morally and intellectually bankrupt fools who believed their own lies and who still keep trying to shove them down our throats. They have set the bar so low, almost anything will be an improvement. We have a clear mandate, a clear path, and a clear call to duty; all we need are willing hands and true hearts guided by thinking minds.
Yes we did, yes we can, and YES WE WILL!"
With that, the celebration resumed.
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Welcome back to 2012. Was all that only 3 years ago? Amazing how collective amnesia has swept all that under the rug, and everything is now all the fault of the Kenyan Muslim Socialist who has now declared war on Religion, among other things. It hasn't been helped by all of the disappointments on the other side: the repeated reaching out, the unnecessary compromises, the pre-emptive capitulations - all to a crew that has never flinched from its determination to sabotage every thing good in the last three years in order to go back to pre 2008 on steroids. The right wing media has been cranking up the venom, telling ever more outrageous lies to stir up racism, xenophobia, religious intolerance, homophobia, misogyny.....
We've gotten out of one war we never should have been in, and may be able to wind down the one that was handed over unfinished, but the drumbeat to attack Iran is getting louder. You can see and hear the GOP lusting for a new war. We did get a start on real healthcare reform - but what wasn't intentionally compromised is under determined attack. Citizens United has turned our elections into an auction; the amount of money that's going to get thrown around this year could make a huge dent in the deficit - or so could realistic taxation on the super rich and corporations. What are the odds?
Occupy Wall Street has changed the national dialog for the moment. People are starting to realize that the last 30 years of Reaganism has been an unrelenting disaster of destroyed jobs, a middle class being strip-mined for the little it has left, Wall Street cannibalizing Main Street....
But....
If anything, the disloyal opposition has gotten more extreme. They want to roll back Obamacare, dismantle the EPA, outlaw contraception, cut taxes on the wealthy even more AND gut both Social Security and Medicare. Wall Street is investing heavily - in politicians. Science is under attack; the legislative process is broken and the media is largely useless. (You know it's really getting crazy when someone tries to claim Rick Santorum would make a credible Commander in Chief because of his time in Congress... and nobody laughs them out of town.) The major candidates to replace President Obama are essentially batshit insane - even Republicans don't really care for them. But you still hear people talking about politicians, saying "They're all alike." The stupid - it burns.
It's not overreacting to wonder if the election of 2012 is going to be as eventful as the election of 1860.