Bye George

If I understand it right, today is the last full day of George W Bush's presidency. And already I'm seeing comments to the effect that it's the American people who are wholly or partly to blame, because, the commenters say, you "did nothing to fight back."

I have to question this, because time and time and time again in the last eight years, when filkertom and others have been seething and snarling at Bush's latest enormity, I've poked my head up and said "okay, what can you do about it?" and been told, patiently and with worked examples, that there wasn't anything you could do; that impeachment was the only way to get him out of office, that that had to be originated by Congress, and that, even after Congress changed, it was vanishingly unlikely that it could be made to work. Before that, no way. Basically, from the moment Fox News called the election in 2000, you were stuck with the guy for the next four years, because the system as it stands does not allow for the people to get rid of a president it hates. Standing by and doing nothing was your only option. And even if the 2004 election wasn't actually rigged, and I'm still not convinced and probably never will be, the sheer weight of propaganda on Bush's side was terrifying. Honestly, I don't know how you stand it. And anyway, Kerry just wasn't the guy. So you had another four years, and again, there was nothing you could do.

I can see a possible logic to the comments. Maybe it's more soothing to the ego, in a way, to think of yourselves as complicit in what's been done to you than as helpless victims. But really, I don't think there's any shame in admitting that you got screwed.

And tomorrow is another day.