Worst. President. EVER.

I know it’s early to ring in with the verdict of history and I know there’s room for reasonable debate. But I feel pretty sure that this will indeed be the epitaph of George Walker Bush, 43rd President of the United States (to our everlasting chagrin and shame). Hopefully the crimes committed by he and his cronies will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and the nation will reach a consensus on exactly how disastrous the past eight years have been – largely, I would point out, through acts of will, not acts of God. While others will compiled fuller lists, and while I intend to steal mercilessly as I compile this, what follows below the fold is my recitation of the sins of W:

• Authorizing torture.
• Authorizing warrantless wiretapping of Americans.
• Abrogation of the Geneva Conventions.
• Guantanamo
• Launching a war of choice against a nation not actively engaged in hostilities.
• Lying about connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda to “justify” the war.
• Lying about weapons of mass destruction to “justify” the war.
• Loading up billions of dollars on cargo pallets and shipping them to friends in the Middle East.
• Spiriting Saudi nationals out of the country while the post-9/11 fly ban was in effect, so as to prevent the FBI from interrogating them.
• Failing to catch and apparently forgetting about the anthrax mailer
• My Pet Goat while the towers fell.
• Appointing John Ashcroft as the most vile, slimy attorney-general. Until, that is,
• Appointing Alberto Gonzales as even more vile, even slimier attorney-general.
• Promulgating the theory of the unitary executive.
• Sitting back and watching New Orleans die.
• Appointing Michael Brown head of FEMA, leading to New Orleans dying.
• Enacting a massive transfer of wealth from working-class and middle-class Americans to those already possessing the most.
• Using our troops as political props.
• Launching a war of choice at a time of his choosing, and yet somehow still doing so with a woefully unprepared military.
• Denying medical rights to veterans wounded in his two wars, and to their families.
• Politicizing the Department of Justice.
• Appointing someone to head civil rights enforcement, who was hostile to the idea of civil rights enforcement.
• A White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives.
• Substituting his personal judgment for science.
• Politicizing the nation’s scientific research apparatus.
• Allowing his vice president to meet in secret with energy industry officials, then fashion an energy policy that increased American dependence on foreign oil.