Friday, June 08, 2007

In my dreams

Screaming and crying, George W. Bush was escorted out of a courtroom and back to jail Friday after a judge ruled that he must serve out his entire 45-day sentence behind bars rather than on his Texas ranch.

"It's not right!" shouted the weeping Bush, who violated his parole in a corruption case. "Mom!" he called out to his mother, Barbara Bush, in the audience.

Bush, who was brought to court in handcuffs in a sheriff's car, came into the courtroom disheveled and weeping, hair askew, wearing a gray fuzzy sweatshirt over slacks.

He cried throughout the hearing, his body shook constantly and he dabbed at his eyes. Several times he turned to his parents, seated behind him in the courtroom, and mouthed, "I love you."

Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer was calm but apparently irked by the morning's developments. He said he had left the courthouse Thursday night having signed an order for Bush to appear for the hearing.

When he got in his car early Friday, he said, he heard a radio report that he had approved Bush's participation in the hearing by telephone, but he had not.

"I at no time condoned the actions of the sheriff and at no time told him I approved the actions," he said of the decision to release Bush from jail after three days.

"At no time did I approve the defendant being released from custody to his home in Crawford," Sauer said.

Labels: , ,

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Bush: bad president, or worst president?

When Bush won in 2004, I told a few close friends that there was a single small, silver lining: Had he lost, Bush would have been canonized by the right. But having won, Bush's mistakes would catch up to him, and he would go down in history as the worst president ever.

The Washington Post recently published five op-eds asking this very question
. I love the fact that in a sort of reverse Stephen Colbert moment, the consensus is somewhere between "Yes, worst ever" and "No, just fifth worst".

Labels: , , , ,