Wreckage

Criminals:

The White House predicted Monday that President Bush would leave a record $482 billion deficit to his successor, a sobering turnabout in the nation’s fiscal condition from 2001, when Mr. Bush took office after three consecutive years of budget surpluses.

The worst may be yet to come. The deficit announced by Jim Nussle, the White House budget director, does not reflect the full cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the potential $50 billion cost of another economic stimulus package, or the possibility of steeper losses in tax revenues if individual income or corporate profits decline.

The new deficit numbers also do not account for any drains on the national treasury that might result from further declines in the housing market.

Wow, bad news. But remember Bushie's Law: any damage done by his and Cheney's Administration will turn out to be worse by a factor of 3x. I'll predict we're looking at closer to a one-point-three trillion dollar deficit ($1,300,000,000,000.00) to be discovered within three months following January 20, 2009. And American will have the next installment in paying down the Bush/Cheney debt.

Unless, of course, the designated Republican wins.

What else would not be properly punished? More prosecutable violations:

In her position as White House liaison for the Justice Department, Ms. Goodling was involved in hiring lawyers for both political appointments and nonpolitical career positions. Regardless of the type of position, the report said, Ms. Goodling would run applicants at interviews through the same batch of questions, asking them about their political philosophies, why they wanted to serve President Bush, and who, aside from Mr. Bush, they admired as public servants, the report found. Sometimes, Ms. Goodling would ask: “Why are you a Republican?”

In Ms. Goodling’s notes from the interviews, she would give a shorthand assessment of how well they fared on threshold political issues, as in the notation for one candidate who she wrote was aptly conservative on “god, guns + gays...”

...Such consideration of political views would have been allowed in hiring candidates to political appointments, which make up a tiny part of the Justice Department’s 110,000 employees, but it was clearly banned under both Civil Service law and the Justice Department’s internal policies, the inspector general said.

Like I said, no one will have to know any more about this if this guy gets elected. He's not interested.

Time for a new generation to lead, but is also times like this that the most recidivist element growing malignant all these years with the anger held in abeyance thanks to the exported violence and imported repression, but continued to be fed on smug mass marketed hatred and ignorance by folks like this guy read and undoubtedly listened to and watched.

I predict there will be more of them but the most important thing is to keep ourselves between them and our next President. Because even if there's blood on the hands of the lying purveyors of righteous bile and license, it's no substitute for someone as well-equipped, as poised and focused on solving these problems as any living American could hope to be.

Because this time, if anyone, it's going to take an Obama to clean up after a Bush.