The Truth Comes Out Now, about 8 Years Too Late!

It is fun to read the kiss & tell books that reveal the "secrets" of a presidential administration. But I'm annoyed when an incompetent holds office for eight years and nothing comes out. But once he loses his grip on power, the truth comes out in all its shocking, horrifying detail. It is too late now. That stuff should have come out when it first came up in the Bush admin so that voters could have tossed the bum out early before he completed his full five acts of tragedy wherein he pretty well destroyed America...

Here's the right winger Bruce Bartlett reviewing the right winger Matt Latimer's book on Bush:

I am reading Matt Latimer's book, just out today, Speech-Less: Tales of a White House Survivor. Two things struck me. First is confirmation of the portrait of George W. Bush that I painted in my Impostor book of a bully who cannot stand to be contradicted, who thinks he knows everything despite being grossly ignorant most of the time, and who browbeats those beneath him into agreeing with him.
Second is how different the Bush White House was from the Reagan White House where I worked. Reagan's WH was a model of thoroughness, adherence to proper procedure, and respect for the office of the president. Bush's WH seems amazingly slipshod, showing total disregard for all of the things that were important to Reagan in terms of how his administration functioned.
On the first point, I was struck by this paragraph as the author discusses his first session with Bush reviewing a draft speech he had written:
"The president's editing sessions went like this: he talked, you listened and scribbled furiously whatever he said. On occasion, he might ask a question. But usually he wasn't too interested in the answer. Sometimes in the middle of your explaining something, if he felt he wasn't getting what he wanted, he'd interrupt and say, 'Okay, here's what we need to do.' This wasn't a process that encouraged dialogue or pushback on an important point. This was George W. decisively telling you what he wanted to say, and you writing it down. Got it?"
The problem with such a bullying method is that the president isn't just some guy expressing a personal opinion when he speaks. If he were, then it would be perfectly appropriate for him to demand that his speechwriters wrote whatever he damn well told them to say. But the president of the United States speaks not just for himself, not just for his administration, but for the country as a whole. His words carry weight. Consequently, it is appalling to see him treating those words in such a cavalier manner.

...

I continue to believe that a great many of Bush's screw-ups, most especially on Iraq, resulted from his personal style, which eventually permeated throughout his entire administration. It disdained facts and analysis and glorified decisiveness and action. "Shoot first and ask questions later" could have been its motto.

Of course the true believers will poke their fingers in their ears and whistle Dixie rather than listen to reason. The political process in the US is broken. Starting with Goldwater and the hard turn to the right in the Republican party, things have been going downhill for nearly 50 years. The bus is over the cliff and careening off the cliff wall, but it hasn't hit bottom yet. That is going to be one sad day when the next yahoo Republican takes power and finishes the job of destroying America.