Well, that went surprisingly quickly – although I’m sure the remaining five days will be ample time for Bush to create the fascist tyranny Naomi Wolf predicted and nuke Iran.
Oliver Burkeman sums up his last speech:
So there we are. There was good, and there was evil, and Bush took a lot of tough decisions, because he is the Decider, and for this we should apparently thank him even if we didn’t agree with the decisions he took, because the point is that they were tough decisions, and he took them.
Bush is to the Guardian and Independent, what Lady Diana is to the Daily Express. How are the liberal press going to survive the loss of their biggest asset?
Bush starts his progression into the yellowing pages of history. Big expectations and big problems await Obama, and in the short term George W Bush won’t be the best card in the US Presidents Top Trump pack.
Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed predict Obama will turn out to be an outstanding or above-average president, a vote of confidence that puts him in Ronald Reagan territory.
Asked how history will judge the past seven presidents, Americans rank Reagan first: 64% call him outstanding or above average. Half give Bill Clinton that high rating, but a majority predict that the other recent presidents — the two Bushes, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon — will rank lower.
At the bottom, just 15% say Nixon, forced to resign amid the Watergate scandal, was outstanding or above average. And 59% predict the current president will be seen as below average or poor, the highest negative rating for any of the recent presidents.
Americans view the inauguration of Obama — the first African American to win the White House — as a historic moment. One-third of those surveyed, including an overwhelming majority of blacks, say it will be the most historic inauguration the nation has ever had. Another 45% call it one of the most historic inaugurations in U.S. history.
These have been, and continue to be, interesting times.
