Day: January 20, 2009

I have a suggestion, to pre-empt the revision of history that you just know will be coming. Let’s make our true feelings about the Presidency of George W. Bush be clearly heard.

With luck, we can start a meme here — hopefully getting enough momentum going that it gets media coverage.

The George W. Bush Foundation is prepping the enshrinement of the fiction surrounding his so-called legacy, so let’s donate objects which TRULY reflect his legacy.

Go to your closet, grab one of your old shoes, and mail it to the Foundation:

George W. Bush Foundation
PO Box 600610
Dallas, TX 75206

Flood their office with a massive wave of symbolic disapproval… virtually throwing our shoes at this shameful stain on our nation’s history.

“As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: Know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.”

Bush has to feel about three inches high at the moment. He’s sitting there, on that platform, as Obama says those words, and over a million voices ROAR in approval.

That is my favorite moment of this address — with this as a close second:

“What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.”

Amen. Let’s get to work.

– ARETHA. No, let me say that again: A R E T H A. Holy crap.

– John Paul Stevens administering the oath to VP Biden. With that, the man who was truly ruling the country for the last 8 years, Dick Cheney, is deposed.

– Quartet featuring Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma, in a composition arranged by John Williams. “Simple Gifts” is one of my favorite pieces, although I always hear it as “Lord of the Dance.” Very, very well done.

– The crowd is instructed to stand for the oath. Chief Justice Roberts keeps screwing up the oath! WTF? Didn’t you study? Way to throw a wrench into a historical moment, numb-nuts.

– Barack Hussein Obama is now the 44th President of the United States.

Speech reaction in a moment.