As President George W. Bush prepares to leave office, Laura Bush will take Michelle on a tour of the White House this afternoon,  while he sits down for a face-to-face with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office.  The occasion is an opportunity for me to look back at Alexandra Pelosi's JOURNEYS WITH GEORGE, one of the first documentaries on George Bush, as he was running for the Republican Presidential Nomination in 1999 and 2000.

   By the time I reviewed the documentary, the night after the 2002 Midterm Elections, I could already limn some consequences, both calculated and careless,  of President Bush's first two years in office:

    "In his Attention Deficit Disorder style, President Bush went on to charm the pants off the American People, if not before his Election to the Presidency, certainly after 9-1-1. It did not matter that he then declared his intention to attack preemptively 60 foreign nations . . . 

"Nor that he used "The War on Terrorism" as an excuse to curtail their Civil Liberties, abrogate our foreign treaties and revive Star Wars . . . 

"Nor that he rebated a trillion dollars of their taxes, most of it to the upper 5% of his class, with no discernible change in the decline of our Economy . . . 

"Nor that executives of that class, his personal friends, his running mate, his appointees, were implicated in the collapse of Stock Market and the loss of more than six trillion dollars of Stockholders' money . . . 

"Nor that he put our democratic society proudly on record as favoring American hit squads to take out whomever someone or other want taken out . . . 

"Nor that the interlocking directorates of which his Family is a part would continue to work for the economic hegemony of the American Empire over the World, and soon in Outer Space . . . 

"Nor that he and his Administration set about relaxing or weakening almost ever Federal regulation safeguarding our water, air, forests, and envionmental health . . . 

"Nor that he opposed or weakened pitiful public services and safeguards, such as health facilities for children (40,000,000 living at or below the poverty line), the elderly, and the citizenry in general, which other, poorer nations in the Western World enjoy in much greater abundance . . . 

"Nor, that he intended, if he deemed it necessary, to call up the first 250,000 reserves of a couple of million troops he requisitioned in his Executive Orders of September 12, 2001 . . . 

"Nor that he rejected the conclusions of an International scientific congress (which his own handpicked panel reluctantly and belatedly accepted) that massive environmental Global degradation, much of it our doing, is bringing dire consequences, not only in the distant future, but in the present. In fact, he now promises to take steps which will accelerate the process . . . 

"Nor finally, that in a year's time, he liquidated a substantial Budget Surplus and insured that our National Debt and Balance of Payments would become much worse, likely bringing catastrophic inflation and/or deflation, in a well-known classic pattern, within a decade . . . . "

  Of course, there was much, much more -- and much more  to come.

  If you would like to read some still interesting facts about our erstwhile 43rd President, look at my late Article and Review Entries.  Or follow this URL: 

      http://www.redroom.com/articlestory/journeys-with-george-a-farewell-looking-back-beginning