Thus Always to Tyrants

Tomorrow I'll be watching the inauguration before heading off to a doctor's appointment (it will be early here on the West Coast), and while I'm looking forward to hearing Obama's speech and celebrating the start of a new administration, the uncorking of a pricey bottle of wine tomorrow evening will be less in celebration of our incoming leader and more a celebration for finally shaking loose the current occupant. My only wish is that he and his cronies were leaving Washington, D.C. for a retirement community in Guantanamo Bay, or at least an extended vacation in The Hague.

Eight years seems like an eternity now, and when I think back to where I was when George W. Bush first crept into power, it's hard to believe that I wasn't even a year out of college, living in my parent's basement in Neenah, Wisconsin, and working full time in a retail position at ShopKo. I recall reading about the ongoing recount in our disgusting little break room on the second floor. I remember a phone conversation with my in laws the snowy night after Bush v. Gore was handed down, conducted in a busy airport as Jane's flight for a medical school interview was canceled, and during which our anger at Bush's arrogance was brimming over.

That's the personal stuff. But I take the nation's descent into censorship and wartime patriotism pretty personally, too. I had a rough welcome to the GOP-stronghold of San Diego when my Harper's issue featuring a cover story on impeaching George W. Bush never made it to my front door - the only issue in nearly 10 years of subscribing to ever get "lost" in the mail. My replacement copy was sent in an unmarked brown envelope. And there's simply not enough room available to begin detailing my revulsion at the politicization of the justice department, the outing of CIA agents, the administration's embrace of torture, the shame of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, the hundreds upon hundreds of thousands dead as the result of an illegal war, the murky world of Blackwater and atrocities against civilians, CIA blacksites and extraordinary renditions, the steadfast refusal to acknowledge global warming, and the fiasco of Hurricane Katrina. The tanking of the economy seems a mere maraschino cherry at the top of a sundae when considered alongside the damage visited upon the country.

Thanks for paying attention to AIDS in Africa, George. Really, I mean it. And those marine monuments in the Pacific Ocean are truly impressive. But get out of Washington and get out of my life. I hope you have to duck thrown shoes until the end of your days.