By Hank Stram, December 2008
Just in case it’s not abundantly clear, I want to point out that in Right-wing world, nothing is ever Bush’s fault. Everything bad that happened up until a few months ago? Clinton’s fault. Everything bad that happened since a few months ago? That’s the market responding to the terrifying reality of the impending Obama presidency. I’m willing to bet that similar bizarro-logic will apply once Obama takes office. Bad news? It’s all Obama’s fault. Good news? The seeds that Bush planted are flowering. It would stand to reason that good news on Bush’s watch would be rightfully credited as flowering seeds that Clinton planted, and yet I can’t think of a single example. Could this be a case of Right-wing media bias? Possibly. But a more plausible explanation is that nothing good happened on Bush’s watch. I know that might sound a tad hyperbolic, but I really can’t think of a single example – other than the near-eradication of the GOP. Can you?
Speaking of Right-wing media bias, FOX News recently announced that house “liberal” Alan Colmes will be leaving the “Hannity and Colmes” show. In keeping with their “fair and balanced” slogan, FOX will not be replacing Colmes, leaving Hannity to do the show solo. This means that an empty chair will have to fill the role of liberal counterweight to the Right-wing bully-boy Hannity. If you’ve seen the show before, you can guess where I’m going with this…
According to the New York Post’s Page Six, Ann Coulter has a broken jaw and her mouth is wired shut. I don’t care which side of the political divide you’re on; we’re all human beings and we should all wish her a speedy recov… Aw, who the hell am I kidding. I hope it hurts a lot and that she gets addicted to Vicodin and then laid out by a secondary infection.
I’ve always been a big fan of using the familiar in order to illustrate the unfathomable. Here’s an example. US paper currency is 0.0043 inches thick. The total cost of the US government’s bailout of beleaguered financial institutions is $4.6 trillion. Guess how tall you’d have to stack hundred-dollar bills in order to make a pile worth $ 4.6 trillion. The answer? More than 3,100 miles. Make it one-dollar bills and now we’re talking about a pile that would more than reach the moon. I could do this for pennies, ham sandwiches, croissants, movie tickets, paint, or salaries, but you probably get the point. But just to hammer the point home, let’s add up the costs of the following (adjusted for 2008 dollars):

The Marshall Plan
The Louisiana Purchase
The Savings-and-Loan Bailout
The Korean War
The New Deal
The Iraq War
The Vietnam War
Every penny we’ve ever spent on NASA

Total cost? According to Jim Bianco of Bianco Research, it’s $3.92 trillion. That still $680 billion less than the amount that’s been committed to fixing the most vexing economic fuck-up any of us have ever experienced. Although it’s hard to develop a reasonable perspective on the enormity of the situation while we’re living in the middle of it, this is certainly one for the history books and a fitting grand-finale for the worst administration in our nation’s history. Heckuva job, Bushie! Good riddance.