George Walker Bush.

    43rd president of the United States.
    first ever with a criminal record.
    our third story tonight,
    his presidency: eight years in eight minutes.

    early in 2001 the U.S. fingered Al Qaeda
    for the bombing of the USS Cole
    Bush counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke
    had a plan to take down Al Qaeda.
    instead by February the NSC
    had already discussed invading Iraq,
    and had a plan for post-Saddam Iraq.

    by March 5 Bush had a map ready for Iraqi oil exploration
    and a list of companies.
    Al Qaeda?
    Rice told Clarke not to give Bush a lot of long memos.
    not a big reader.

    August 6, 2001
    a CIA analyst briefs Bush on vacation:
    "Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S."
    Bush takes no action tells the briefer - quote
    all right, you've covered your ass now.

    next month Clarke requests
    using new predator drones to kill Bin Laden
    the Pentagon and CIA
    say no.

    September 11th
    Bush remains seated for several minutes
    to avoid scaring school children
    by getting up and leaving.
    he then flies around the country
    and promises quote a full scale investigation to find
    those folks who did it

    Rumsfeld says Afghanistan does not have enough targets
    we've got to do Iraq.
    when the CIA traps Bin Laden at Tora Bora
    it asks for 800 rangers to cut off his escape
    Bush outsources the job to Pakistanis
    sympathetic to the Taliban
    Bin Laden
    gets away

    in February General Tommy Franks tells a visiting Senator
    Bush is moving equipment out of Afghanistan
    so he can invade Iraq.
    one of the men who prepped Rice for her testimony
    that Bush did not ignore pre 9-11 warnings
    later explains quote we cherry picked things
    to make it look like the president
    had been actually concerned about Al Qaeda
    they didn't give a bleep about Al Qaeda

    July and Britain's intel chief says Bush is
    fixing intelligence and facts around the policy to take out Saddam
    January 03
    Bush and Blair agree to invade in March
    Mr. Bush still telling us he has not decided
    telling Blair they should paint an airplane in UN colors
    fly it over Iraq and provoke a response
    a pretext for invasion

    the man who said it would take several hundred thousand troops
    fired
    the man who said it would cost more than a hundred billion
    fired
    the man who revealed Bush's yellowcake lie
    smeared
    his wife's covert status
    exposed
    the White House liars who did it
    and covered it up
    not fired
    one convicted
    Bush commutes his sentence

    then in Iraq, stuff happens:
    Iraq's army, disbanded
    the government de-Baathified
    200,000 weapons, billions of dollars just
    lost
    foreign mercenaries immunized from justice
    political hacks run the Green Zone
    religious cleansing forcing one out of six Iraqis from their homes
    Abu Ghraib
    the insurgency
    Al Qaeda in Iraq

    other stuff does not happen:
    WMD
    post-war planning
    body armor
    vehicular armor

    the payoff?
    oil
    and billions for Halliburton, Blackwater and other companies
    while Mr. Bush denies VA healthcare to 450,000 veterans
    tries to raise their healthcare fees
    blocks the new G.I. Bill
    and increases his own power with the USA PATRIOT Act
    with the Military Commissions Act
    public orders exempting himself from a thousand laws
    and secretly from the Presidential Records Act
    The Geneva Conventions
    FISA
    sparking a mass rebellion at the Justice Department

    secret star chambers for terrorism suspects,
    overturned by Hamdan v Rumsfeld.
    denying habeas corpus,
    overturned by Boumediene v Bush.
    200 renditionings
    sleep deprivation
    abuse
    Rumsfeld warned in 2002 that he was torturing
    that it would jeopardize convictions
    out of 550 at Gitmo
    hundreds ultimately go free with no charges
    dozens are tortured
    eight fatally
    three are convicted

    on U.S. soil twelve hundred immigrants rounded up
    without due process
    without bail
    without court dates
    without a single charge of terrorism

    it wasn't just Mr. Bush no longer subject to the rule of law
    he slashed regulations on everyone from banks to mining companies
    appointed 98 lobbyists to oversee their own industries
    weakening emission standards for mercury
    and 650 different toxic chemicals
    regulators shared drugs
    and their beds
    with industry reps
    the Crandall Canyon mine owner told inspectors to back up
    because his buddy, Republican Mitch McConnell
    was sleeping with their boss
    McConnell's wife is Bush Labor Secretary Elaine Chao
    her agency overruled engineer concerns about Crandall Canyon
    and was found negligent
    after nine miners died in the collapse there

    Mr. Bush's hands off
    as Enron blacks out California
    doubling electric bills
    after months of rejecting price caps Mr. Bush bows to pressure

    the blackouts end

    Mr. Bush further deregulates commodity futures
    midwifing the birth of unregulated oil markets
    which just like Enron jack up prices to an all time high
    until Congress and both presidential candidates call for regulations
    and the prices fall

    deregulating financial services and lax enforcement of remaining rules
    created a housing bubble
    creating the mortgage crisis
    creating then a credit crisis
    devastating industries that rely on credit
    from student loans to car dealers

    firms that had survived the Great Depression could not survive Bush
    those that did got
    seven hundred billion dollars
    no strings, no transparency
    no idea whether it worked

    unlike the auto bailout
    which cut workers' salaries.
    a GOP memo called it
    a chance to punish unions

    but Bush failed even when his party and his patrons
    did not stand to profit
    investigators blamed management cost cutting communication
    for missed warnings about Columbia
    Bush administration convicts include
    sex offenders at Homeland Security
    convicted liars
    every kind of thief in the calendar
    and if you count things that were not prosecuted
    the vice president of the United States actually
    shot a man in the face

    the man apologized.

    Mr. Bush faked the truth
    with paid propaganda in Iraq
    on his education policy

    tried to silence the truth about global warming
    rocket fuel in our water
    industry influence on energy policy

    politicized the truth of science at NASA, the EPA,
    the National Cancer Institute, Fish and Wildlife
    and the FDA

    his lies
    exposed by whistleblowers from the cabinet down
    "complete BS" the treasury secretary said
    of Mr. Bush on his tax cuts.

    Rice's mushroom cloud
    Powell's mobile labs
    Iraq and 9-11
    Jack Abramoff
    Jessica Lynch

    Pat Tillman
    Pat Tillman again
    Pat Tillman, again.

    the air at Ground Zero
    most responders still suffering respiratory problems.

    global warming
    carbon emissions
    a Clear Skies initiative lowering air quality standards
    the Healthy Forests initiative increasing logging
    faith based initiatives
    the cost of medicare reform
    fired US attorneys
    politically synchronized terror alerts

    the surge causing insurgents to switch sides
    that abortion causes breast cancer
    that his first recession began under Clinton
    that he did not wiretap without warrants
    that we do not torture.

    that American citizen John Walker Lindh's rights
    were not violated
    that he refused the right to counsel

    heckuva job Brownie
    some survivors still in trailers
    New Orleans still at just two-thirds its usual population

    the lie that no one could have predicted the economic crisis
    except
    the economists who did
    no one could have predicted 9-11 except
    one ass-covering CIA analyst
    or thirty
    no one could have predicted the levee breach
    except literally
    Mr. Bill
    in a PSA that aired on TV a year before Katrina

    Bush actually admitted that he lied about not firing Rumsfeld
    because he did not want to tell the truth.
    look it up.

    all of it
    all of it and more leaving us with
    ten trillion in debt
    to pay for 31% more in discretionary spending
    the Iraq War
    a 1.3 trillion dollar tax cut

    median income down two thousand dollars
    three-quarters of all income gains under Bush
    going to the richest one percent
    unemployment up from 4.2 to 7.2 percent

    the Dow, down from ten thousand five hundred eighty seven
    to eighty two hundred seventy seven
    six million now more in poverty
    seven million more now without health care

    buying toxic goods from China
    deadly cribs
    outsourcing security to Dubai
    still unsecure in our ports
    and at our nuclear plants
    more dependent on foreign oil
    out of the international criminal court
    off the anti ballistic missle treaty
    military readiness and standards down

    with two unfinished wars
    a nuclear North Korea
    disengaged from the Palestinian problem
    destabilizing eastern european diplomacy with
    anti missile plans
    and unable to keep Russia out of Georgia

    2000 miles of Appalachian streams
    destroyed by rubble from mountaintop mining
    at his last G-8 summit,
    he actually bid farewell to other world leaders
    saying quote - goodbye from the world's greatest polluter

    consistently undermining historic American reverence
    for the institutions that empower us
    education, now "academic elites"
    and the law, "activist judges"
    capping jury awards

    and Bin Laden?
    living today unmolested in a Pakistani safe haven
    created by a truce endorsed and defended by George W. Bush

    and among all the gifts he gave to Bin Laden
    the most awful, the most damaging not just to America
    but to the American ideal
    was to further Bin Laden's goal
    by making us act out of fear rather than fortitude

    leaving us with precious little to cling to tonight
    save the one thing that might yet suffice:

    hope.