Presidencies begin with a slate wiped clean and a first 100 days in which the new incumbent sets out to change the world. They end in the tawdry process in which George W Bush is now engaged: a final flurry of presidential dec-rees to prolong power beyond the grave, a concerted effort to regild a tarnished reputation - and, of course, pardons.
WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush could be forcing President-elect Barack Obama to act almost immediately to curb global warming, after years of the Bush administration fighting attempts to crack down on greenhouse gas emissions.
Or, depending on which interpretation prevails, Bush could be giving his successor much-needed breathing room on a volatile issue.
With president-elect Barack Obama already
taking command of the financial crisis, it's tempting to think that
regime change in America is a done deal. But if George Bush has his
way, the country will be ruled by his slash-and-burn ideology for a
long time to come.
George
W. Bush. But it's long past time that someone looked at the up side of
Bush. Here are 10 good reasons we're going to miss him, in no
particular order.
1. Saying "nucular": Can't beat having a president with his finger
on the nuclear button who can't pronounce the word "nuclear" (keeps 'em
guessing).
2. Picking Dick Cheney: He's everybody's favorite unindicted war
criminal, and the man liberals love to hate. And he will be missed.
Just try getting this worked up about Joe Biden.
Does anyone know where George W. Bush is?
You don't hear much from him anymore. The last image most of us remember is of the president ducking a pair of size 10s that were hurled at him in Baghdad.
We're still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel is thrashing the Palestinians in Gaza. And the U.S. economy is about as vibrant as the 0-16 Detroit Lions.
But hardly a peep have we heard from George, the 43rd.
President-elect Obama's first appointments to the Justice, State and Defense Departments mark no radical change. Rather, they return to a centrist consensus familiar from the Clinton years. But pragmatic incrementalism and studied bipartisanship will do little to undo the centerpiece of the Bush/Cheney era's legacy. At its heart, that regime was intent on forcing the Constitution into a new mold of executive dominance.
'Tis the night before Christmas and the season of goodwill. The mood is forgiving. Our faces warm with mulled wine, our tummies full, we're meant to slump in the armchair, look back on the year just gone and count our blessings - woozily agreeing to put our troubles behind us.
The water churned and pushed against the ice with a dark
seriousness that reminded me of prayer.
Subzero Chicago night at the edge of the year, the edge of
change, the edge of what's bearable. I stood on an old breakwater, a
long, crumbling construction of concrete and steel that jutted into Lake
Michigan — just stood, feeling the wind scrape my face. Whatever thoughts
came to me were honest ones. Or maybe I just needed to grieve.
"Courage grows strong at the wound."
The required transfer in four weeks of all of the Bush White House's electronic mail messages and documents to the National Archives has been imperiled by a combination of technical glitches, lawsuits and lagging computer forensic work, according to government officials, historians and lawyers.
Federal law requires outgoing White House officials to provide the Archives copies of their records, a cache estimated at more than 300 million messages and 25,000 boxes of documents depicting some of the most sensitive policymaking of the past eight years.
