Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Goodnight Bush

In honor of George W. Bush's last day in office I wanted to post a link to one of the best books of 2008, Gan Golan and Erich Origen's Goodnight Bush.

http://www.goodnightbush.com/


Don't let the cute, illustrated style fool you. It's one of the darkest, funniest and most heart-rending books you'll ever read. It makes you realize just how much we've lost over the last eight years.

In 2004, the Democrats thought they had a bulletproof candidate in John Kerry. He was no softy liberal, no goofball politician playing Army in a tank. He was a real war hero who had led men through battle. But Karl Rove turned Kerry's greatest strength into his greatest weakness with help from the Swift Boat Veterans for truth. Kerry went from war hero to war coward overnight. Four years later, Republicans tried again to win by tearing down the opposing candidate. But Barack Obama's brilliance was in turning his biggest potential weakness into his greatest strength. Obama couldn't hide the fact that he had a funny name and looked different from all those old guys on the bills in your wallet. He couldn't help but represent anything but change, and when our society seemed to be sliding off a cliff, change sounded pretty good.

Today, Barack Obama is being sworn in as our 44rd president, and he certainly looks like the man for the job. As lean and grave as Lincoln, his long black coat curling in the cold breeze, he strides with purpose onto the stage of history. You couldn't ask for a better icon in these tough, frightening times. I sincerely hope he lives up to the promise.