early in 2001 the U.S. fingered Al Qaeda
   for the bombing of the USS Cole
   Bush counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke
   had a plan to take down Al Qaeda.
   instead by February the NSC
   had already discussed invading Iraq,
   and had a plan for post-Saddam Iraq.

   by March 5 Bush had a map ready for Iraqi oil exploration
   and a list of companies.
   Al Qaeda?
   Rice told Clarke not to give Bush a lot of long memos.
   not a big reader.

   August 6, 2001
   a CIA analyst briefs Bush on vacation:
   "Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S."
   Bush takes no action tells the briefer—quote
   all right, you've covered your ass now.

   next month Clarke requests
   using new predator drones to kill Bin Laden
   the Pentagon and CIA
   say no.

   September 11th
   Bush remains seated for several minutes
   to avoid scaring school children
   by getting up and leaving.
   he then flies around the country
   and promises quote a full scale investigation to find
   those folks who did it

   Rumsfeld says Afghanistan does not have enough targets
   we've got to do Iraq.
   when the CIA traps Bin Laden at Tora Bora
   it asks for 800 rangers to cut off his escape
   Bush outsources the job to Pakistanis
   sympathetic to the Taliban
   Bin Laden
   gets away

   in February General Tommy Franks tells a visiting Senator
   Bush is moving equipment out of Afghanistan
   so he can invade Iraq.
   one of the men who prepped Rice for her testimony
   that Bush did not ignore pre 9-11 warnings
   later explains quote we cherry picked things
   to make it look like the president
   had been actually concerned about Al Qaeda
   they didn't give a bleep about Al Qaeda

   July and Britain's intel chief says Bush is
   fixing intelligence and facts around the policy to take out Saddam
   January 03
   Bush and Blair agree to invade in March
   Mr. Bush still telling us he has not decided
   telling Blair they should paint an airplane in UN colors
   fly it over Iraq and provoke a response
   a pretext for invasion

   the man who said it would take several hundred thousand troops
   fired
   the man who said it would cost more than a hundred billion
   fired
   the man who revealed Bush's yellowcake lie
   smeared
   his wife's covert status
   exposed
   the White House liars who did it
   and covered it up
   not fired
   one convicted
   Bush commutes his sentence

   then in Iraq, stuff happens:
   Iraq's army, disbanded
   the government de-Baathified
   200,000 weapons, billions of dollars just
   lost
   foreign mercenaries immunized from justice
   political hacks run the Green Zone
   religious cleansing forcing one out of six Iraqis from their homes
   Abu Ghraib
   the insurgency
   Al Qaeda in Iraq

   other stuff does not happen:
   WMD
   post-war planning
   body armor
   vehicular armor

   the payoff?
   oil
   and billions for Halliburton, Blackwater and other companies
   while Mr. Bush denies VA healthcare to 450,000 veterans
   tries to raise their healthcare fees
   blocks the new G.I. Bill
   and increases his own power with the USA PATRIOT Act
   with the Military Commissions Act
   public orders exempting himself from a thousand laws
   and secretly from the Presidential Records Act
   The Geneva Conventions
   FISA
   sparking a mass rebellion at the Justice Department

   secret star chambers for terrorism suspects,
   overturned by Hamdan v Rumsfeld.
   denying habeas corpus,
   overturned by Boumediene v Bush.
   200 renditionings
   sleep deprivation
   abuse

   Rumsfeld warned in 2002 that he was torturing
   that it would jeopardize convictions
   out of 550 at Gitmo
   hundreds ultimately go free with no charges
   dozens are tortured
   eight fatally
   three are convicted

   on U.S. soil twelve hundred immigrants rounded up
   without due process
   without bail
   without court dates
   without a single charge of terrorism

   it wasn't just Mr. Bush no longer subject to the rule of law
   he slashed regulations on everyone from banks to mining companies
   appointed 98 lobbyists to oversee their own industries
   weakening emission standards for mercury
   and 650 different toxic chemicals
   regulators shared drugs
   and their beds
   with industry reps
   the Crandall Canyon mine owner told inspectors to back up
   because his buddy, Republican Mitch McConnell
   was sleeping with their boss
   McConnell's wife is Bush Labor Secretary Elaine Chao
   her agency overruled engineer concerns about Crandall Canyon
   and was found negligent
   after nine miners died in the collapse there

   Mr. Bush's hands off
   as Enron blacks out California
   doubling electric bills
   after months of rejecting price caps Mr. Bush bows to pressure

   the blackouts end

   Mr. Bush further deregulates commodity futures
   midwifing the birth of unregulated oil markets
   which just like Enron jack up prices to an all time high
   until Congress and both presidential candidates call for regulations

   and the prices fall

   deregulating financial services and lax enforcement of remaining rules
   created a housing bubble
   creating the mortgage crisis
   creating then a credit crisis
   devastating industries that rely on credit
   from student loans to car dealers

   firms that had survived the Great Depression could not survive Bush
   those that did got
   seven hundred billion dollars
   no strings, no transparency
   no idea whether it worked

   unlike the auto bailout
   which cut workers' salaries.
   a GOP memo called it
   a chance to punish unions

   but Bush failed even when his party and his patrons
   did not stand to profit
   investigators blamed management cost cutting communication
   for missed warnings about Columbia
   Bush administration convicts include
   sex offenders at Homeland Security
   convicted liars
   every kind of thief in the calendar
   and if you count things that were not prosecuted
   the vice president of the United States actually
   shot a man in the face

   the man apologized.

   Mr. Bush faked the truth
   with paid propaganda in Iraq
   on his education policy

   tried to silence the truth about global warming
   rocket fuel in our water
   industry influence on energy policy

   politicized the truth of science at NASA, the EPA,
   the National Cancer Institute, Fish and Wildlife
   and the FDA

   his lies
   exposed by whistleblowers from the cabinet down
   "complete BS" the treasury secretary said
   of Mr. Bush on his tax cuts.

   Rice's mushroom cloud
   Powell's mobile labs
   Iraq and 9-11
   Jack Abramoff
   Jessica Lynch

   Pat Tillman
   Pat Tillman again
   Pat Tillman, again.

   the air at Ground Zero
   most responders still suffering respiratory problems.

   global warming
   carbon emissions
   a Clear Skies initiative lowering air quality standards
   the Healthy Forests initiative increasing logging
   faith based initiatives
   the cost of medicare reform
   fired US attorneys
   politically synchronized terror alerts

   the surge causing insurgents to switch sides
   that abortion causes breast cancer
   that his first recession began under Clinton
   that he did not wiretap without warrants
   that we do not torture.

   that American citizen John Walker Lindh's rights
   were not violated
   that he refused the right to counsel

   heckuva job Brownie
   some survivors still in trailers
   New Orleans still at just two-thirds its usual population

   the lie that no one could have predicted the economic crisis
   except
   the economists who did
   no one could have predicted 9-11 except
   one ass-covering CIA analyst
   or thirty
   no one could have predicted the levee breach
   except literally
   Mr. Bill
   in a PSA that aired on TV a year before Katrina

   Bush actually admitted that he lied about not firing Rumsfeld
   because he did not want to tell the truth.
   look it up.

   all of it
   all of it and more leaving us with
   ten trillion in debt
   to pay for 31% more in discretionary spending
   the Iraq War
   a 1.3 trillion dollar tax cut

   median income down two thousand dollars
   three-quarters of all income gains under Bush
   going to the richest one percent
   unemployment up from 4.2 to 7.2 percent

   the Dow, down from ten thousand five hundred eighty seven
   to eighty two hundred seventy seven
   six million now more in poverty
   seven million more now without health care

   buying toxic goods from China
   deadly cribs
   outsourcing security to Dubai
   still unsecure in our ports
   and at our nuclear plants
   more dependent on foreign oil
   out of the international criminal court
   off the anti ballistic missle treaty
   military readiness and standards down

   with two unfinished wars
   a nuclear North Korea
   disengaged from the Palestinian problem
   destabilizing eastern european diplomacy with
   anti missile plans
   and unable to keep Russia out of Georgia

   2000 miles of Appalachian streams
   destroyed by rubble from mountaintop mining
   at his last G-8 summit,
   he actually bid farewell to other world leaders
   saying quote—goodbye from the world's greatest polluter

   consistently undermining historic American reverence
   for the institutions that empower us
   education, now "academic elites"
   and the law, "activist judges"
   capping jury awards

   and Bin Laden?
   living today unmolested in a Pakistani safe haven
   created by a truce endorsed and defended by George W. Bush

   and among all the gifts he gave to Bin Laden
   the most awful, the most damaging not just to America
   but to the American ideal
   was to further Bin Laden's goal
   by making us act out of fear rather than fortitude

   leaving us with precious little to cling to tonight
   save the one thing that might yet suffice:

   hope.