A good riddance Sermon from the Church of Ineffable Stupidity:

1862 – American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln signs an act that admits West Virginia to the Union, thus dividing Virginia in two.

1983 – The AT&T Bell System is broken up by the United States Government.

COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT!

“The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul”
G. K. Chesterton

“If ever humanity needed to say good bye to the old year, it would be now. If ever humanity needed to start anew, to reassess our path, our selves, our future, it would be now. At no other time in our history, have we faced so many troubles, while having so many potential answers at our fingertips.”
Anonymous

From the Church of Ineffable Stupidity, a good riddance Sermon:

A) George W. Bush
Incurious, unread, willful, and obstinate. One of Colin Powell’s top aides compared him to Sarah Palin, and not in favorable terms. His current vacation is probably the only high note from his presidency. His current rehabilitation theme is to claim that America was safe for seven years!

He wants us to ignore the run up to 9/11, the warnings that he personally, and his top aides professionally ignored. It was their job to pick up on threats, to review the intelligence that strongly warned about the attack, and to prevent 9/11 from happening. They did not. Every single person who blew it on 9/11, Condi Rice, Dick Cheney, George Bush, Don Rumsfeld, the colelctive heads of the DIA, CIA, FBI, and other intel units – either they were rewarded for their failure, or in some cases, promoted. More than anyone else, Condi and George bear personal responsibility for 9/11 and never have they owned up to their own failures.

Katrina? IraqNam? Osama Bin Laden? Enron? The Mortgage fiasco? The Derivatives Market? Even the TARP bailout? Lebanon? Palestine?

No matter how hard Condi or Laura try to pull the wool over our eyes, you have been the worst president in America’s history, and your upcoming exit is the most welcome gift to America, indeed, to the world.

– – –

b) Dick Cheney
You come in second, but not for want of effort, Mr. Cheney. We should have suspected it from the beginning. Any egotistical, power-hungry, PNAC, war-loving maniac who is given the right to choose America’s vice president, should never have been allowed to choose himself.
You lied from the time you took office. Heck, you started SPYING on America, through telcoms, NSA, CIA and FBI even B E F O R E the 9/11 attacks. Then, when you had Americans properly shocked and awed, you used it to pass the Patriot Act, and later, FISA, and you reaped the gains of your illegal surveillance and spying. Who did you blackmail? Nancy Pelosi? Harry Reid? Does that explain their rather curious, spineless, and overall damaging behavior for the past two years? How else did you personally profit, other than Haliburton’s no-bid contracts, and the massive contractor frauds that took place in Iraq? Which of your friends cheered on your every move, which ended up so profitable to them, and to you? OH, and do tell. What ever happened to the $6 billion in cash that you ordered sent to Baghdad on a military cargo plane, and why have all investigators into that cash been fired, transfered or gone missing? How many GAO inspectors’ careers have you ordered ruined since you became VP? And despite your best shredding efforts, I wonder what other crimes we will find when your records finally become public.

If George was the asshole of this administration, you were its cancerous, festering, genital cyst.
– – –

c) C is for Condi Rice
We can be certain of one thing. If the NFL wishes to commit hari kiri, the best way for them to destroy the league is to appoint you commissioner. That would virtually guarantee its demise.

Have you no sense of shame or responsibility?
Who chaired the National Security Council, the highest ranking, most powerful, and best informed group that advises the president? you.
Who failed to even educate herself about what Al Qaida was? you.
Who concentrated on a non-existent missile threat from the USSR, even though that country ceased to exist 9 years earlier? you.
Who ignored her own terrorist advisor, Richard Clarke, who repeatedly tried to get your attention with hot intel about an upcoming attack on US soil? you.
Who was the Iraq Invasion’s biggest cheerleader, after Dick Cheney? you.
Who lied to the American people about smoking guns and mushroom clouds? you.
Who was assigned the task of fixing the Iraq Reconstruction after Don Rumsfeld’s and Dick Cheney’s merry band of thieves screwed it up, while profiting greatly the first time? you.
Who ignored Iraq, and your new task, and got promoted to SexState? you.
Who proved to be the worst, most petulant, least knowledgeable, most willful, least respected, and most demanding SexState in America’s history? you.
Who was assigned the task of Fixing Iraq a SECOND TIME, this time as SexState? you.
And who failed miserably, both times that George asked you to fix Iraq? you.

Let’s ignore your hideous, deadly, and frankly, embarrassing behavior during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. Let’s ignore your repeated embarrassments and sdiplomatic screw ups in Pakistan, India, Russia, Georgia, Iran, Syria, England, Egypt, Yemen, Zimbabwe, Sudan, South Africa, Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, Haiti, Columbia, Korea (both N & S), just to mention a few. No, on second thought, we cannot ignore them.

Condi, when history properly calls George W. Bush the worst president in our country’s history, they will call you his second worst assistant/advisor. Only Darth Cheney served himself better, and this country and his president worse than you. But really, such comparisons are like comparing turds in the toilet before you flush. And On January 20, we get to flush you away.

– – –

d) The D list is tough.
Don Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, Scooter Libby, Dave Addington, Richard Perle, and so many more to add here.

Who could have imagined (to paraphrase Condi) that a sick and ailing John Ashcroft would become the first, best defense of the Constitution of the United States, in the face of VP and presidential aides demanding martial law powers over the privacy of American citizens? Ashcroft, the religious maniac who draped the firm, pert, brassy breasts of Lady Justice. The man who lost a campaign to a corpse. An unlikely hero, but a hero nevertheless.

—

e) Nancy Reid and Harry Pelosi.
Wait. That’s wrong somehow. But it is also instructive in that it is impossible to tell them apart, at least when you measure them against any living creature with a spine. Hell, earthworms have more substance and integrity, compared to these two. Even with a majority, even though they had been lied to for 6 years, EVEN WHEN intel experts said there was no crisis, you guys managed to extend FISA, fund Iraq, take impeachment off the table, and effectively cover-up many high crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush Administration.

Of course, let’s not talk about your $250,000 in AIG stock, Nancy, money which you would have lost, but for the socialist bailout by the US citizens. Loved your disclosure of that conflict, by the way.

– – –

f) Today’s GOP.
It wasn’t just the Regent U fools you put in charge at Justice. It wasn’t just the flat-earthers in NASA. Nor the damage done to the EPA, and pretty much every other federal agency. It wasn’t even how your foreign policy marching orders came from AIPAC, or how the rights of individuals meant less than the ability of large corporations to increase their profits. It wasn’t even your efforts to force a particular religious creed into government, when it suited your plans.
No, instead, let’s just talk convictions. Republican Convictions.
Kinda like indictments, but one step further:

Feb. 22, 2008: Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., indicted on charges of extortion, wire fraud, money laundering and other crimes in an Arizona land swap that authorities say helped him collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in payoffs.

2007: Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, arrested in a bathroom sex sting at the Minneapolis airport. His original guilty plea now stands.

2007: Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, sentenced to prison for graft and bribes from Jack Abramoff.

2006: Rep. “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif., sentenced to eight years for bribes from military contractors.

2005: Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, laundering money and bribes.

2003: Rep. William Janklow, R-S.D convicted of vehicular homicide and sentenced to 100 days in prison.

Other Republicans in trouble? Scooter Libby, Jerry Lewis, John Doolittle, Duncan Hunter, Roy Blunt, Tom Foley, and most of the Bush White House aides.

– – –

g) One GOPer stands out and deserves special mention. Wassilly Sarah Palin
This shining example of education, intellect, political curiosity and knowledge, who has an awe-inspiring grasp of constitutional issues, this family values conservative, whose single 17 yr old daughter gave birth to a baby born to a family of drug dealers, this outstanding citizen who took an offer to buy a TV suit and turned it into a $500,000 joke, not counting accessories, this self-serving, unethical, idiot who thinks that Africa is a country.

The one new year’s hope for every democrat is that the GOP continues to view Sarah Palin as the future of their party. If that is the case, Democrats will stay in power for a generation.

– – –

h) Eternal vigilance is necessary.
Democrats are neither immune to K Street bribes, nor inoculated against their worst personality flaws. Rod Blagojevich, William Jefferson, Charlie Rangel, and others can waste this great opportunity and take down the party. There is too much work to be done, and personal gain must take a distant second place until our nation is back on track. So, let’s start off the new year with this warning: To any democrat who acts like a republican, to jail with you.

– – –

May 2009 not only be an odd year, but a better year than 2008.
_________________________
“There was never a good war or a bad peace.”

Benjamin Franklin