George Bush Publishes Memoirs

I’m not sure though if this is a pop-up book or a colouring-in one.

On a serious note, and on the basis of the limited information available so far (looks like the Guardian will be updating that regularly overnight and by the time people read this there will probably be more info in the public domain), things in the White House under Bush were pretty much as bad as we feared. In the memoirs, Decision Points, Bush recounts how he ordered the US to plan strikes against operations against specific targets in Iran and Syria (so much more than the usual plans that are locked in a drawer to invade pretty much anywhere), shifts the blame for the response to Katrina elsewhere, defends his various wars, praises Tony Blair, and defends the use of torture. There’s an interesting absence from that list, the last of the so-called axis; it’ll be interesting to see if it’s included or ignored in the book itself.

Of Katrina, Bush writes

Five years later, I can barely write these words without feeling disgusted. I am deeply insulted by the suggestion that we allowed American citizens to suffer because they were black… The more I thought about it, the angrier I felt. I was raised to believe that racism was one of the greatest evils in society.

That’s ok Mr President. Here at the CLR we understand you let those people rot because they were poor at least as much as if not more because they were poor than because they were black. We get it – you’re into class politics, not identity politics. We can sympathise – us too.

No discussion in the stories so far of the economy beginning to tank, though he does suggest he wasn’t totally Cheney’s puppet, refusing his demand for a pardon for Scooter Libby.

So enough so far to whet the appetite, and renew your disgust, and your relief that he’s out of the White House.