An open letter to Dubya

Bush Tells Troops "Much More Will Be Asked of You"

...But Bush said his second term offered the chance for unity because "I'm no longer a threat politically."

"In other words, since I'm not going to run for office again people don't have to view me as a threat and hopefully that will enable people from both parties to come together to get some big things done for the country," he told Fox News.

Way to paraphrase the definition of lame duck I remember from my eighth-grade Social Studies textbook, Georgie Boy. And way to turn on the doublespeak: you're ineffectual, so we should all quit worrying and unite with you. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. However, for all that you're no longer a potential political threat, you're still one of the most powerful men in the entire world, and what you do during the next four years will still have an impact.

Face it, buddy: the thousands of dead and the millions of people around the world you've managed to piss off aren't just going to come back to life or change their fucking minds once you're retired and back banging goats on your ranch.

This isn't a fucking game, Georgie! When you're done, you don't get a trophy. What happens is you hand the stewardship of our country--which a majority of us, baffling as it may be, loaned to you in trust--to someone else of our choosing. Part of what we've trusted you to do is hand our country over intact. If we don't think you're actually going to do that, then we'd be fools and traitors to "come together" and let you do whatever the hell you want.

Don't fuck this up, Georgie. Don't sell our blood, our lives, our reputations and our souls down the river for some delusion of a presidential legacy. And don't give us any of your "Aw, shucks...I'm just folks, now," self-deprecating bullshit. For better or worse, your simian, slackjawed mug is the face of my country for the next four years.

Come on, man. Don't listen to all those suit and tie guys trying to ensure that the Conservative Republican bloc gets a lockdown on the Washington power structure for the next generation or three. Listen to us...to all of us. We're divided, we're worried, the rest of the world hates us, our friends and children are being blown to pieces, and we aren't really sure that you care about any of that. A significant portion of the country is losing interest in democracy, is slipping away from the very ideas and ideals that make this country great. And, the irony is that your job is to represent us all.

Stop with the appeals to our sense of you as a lame duck. Just stop it and do your fucking job.