Put a Bow On It

Have you been living in a cave for the last 8 years ? Perhaps in a medically-induced coma ? If so, Frank Rich (columnist at the New York Times) had a brief history of the United States under George W. Bush in his column this weekend. He tied it all up in a nice little package. All you have to do is put a bow on it. And before I lose the partisans, it isn’t all about bashing Bush.

Two Cheers for Rod Blagojevich

Regulators had failed to see the iceberg in Enron’s path and so had Enron’s own accountants at Arthur Andersen, a corporate giant whose parallel implosion had its own casualty list of some 80,000 jobs. Despite Bush’s post-Enron call for “a new ethic of personal responsibility in the business community,” the exact opposite has happened in the six years since. Warren Buffett’s warning in 2003 that derivatives were “financial weapons of mass destruction” was politely ignored.

Hey, I said it wasn’t all about bashing him. I didn’t say he didn’t get bashed. It’s not like I can’t say anything nice about the man. Like -- he has pretty good reflexes for an old guy. So much for the “hearts and minds” thing.

I can’t wait to see the history that will be written about this period. To use Mr. Rich’s term, there will be no shortage of national “whipping boys” to go around.

Don Brown
December 15, 2008