George W Bush: Great President Or The Greatest President?

Of course, I am saying that in the Colbertian sense of the word.

But the San Francisco Chronicle correctly points out that the current crises force us to rethink the lie that Reaganomics has always been.

It is worth stressing that President Bush's criminal and corrupt mismanagement of government, aided by his Republican accomplices for the most part of the eight years of Bush's irresponsible reign, may have done more to destroy Reagan's toxic legacy than anything I have seen in my lifetime.

The Bush administration, its cronies, and the Republican party, have managed to prove the point that Reagan famously made in 1981, that "Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."

Of course, the well-known twist on Reagan's words is that the centerpiece of Republicans campaigns is that government is the problem, which they set out to demonstrate once they have been elected.

The correct restatement of that famous and irresponsible pronouncement is "Bad government is not the solution to our problem; bad government is the problem." People are not tired of government, they are tired of incompetent government. And lately it has become painfully obvious that incompetent government, not government itself, is the cause of our problem.

Which would make Bush the greatest president I have seen in my lifetime: Not for his actions, but for their consequences.