GQ presents this fascinating yet appalling look inside the early days of the Bush Recession, as former Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer talks of the dysfunction within the Oval Office during Bush’s last 22 months.

Many people, including Keith Olbermann (as we blogged here) noted the all-too-coincidental timing between Bush’s falling poll numbers and Homeland Security terror alerts. Turns out, yeah, it wasn’t coincidence.

In a new book, former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge reveals new details on politicization under President Bush, reports US News & World Report’s Paul Bedard. Among other things, Ridge admits that he was pressured to raise the terror alert to help Bush win re-election in 2004.

Read on.

TPM has this terrifying report that

The U.S. military could have kicked in doors to raid a suspected terrorist cell in the United States without a warrant under a Bush-era legal memo the Justice Department made public Monday.

The memo, from Oct. 23, 2001, also said constitutional free-speech protections and a prohibition on unreasonable search and seizure could take a back seat to military needs in fighting terrorism inside the country.

Inaugurate The “Muslim Foreigner” Already! Do we really have to wait until noon?

Aw, shucks.

Furthering our “looking back while our gorge rises” theme, here’s Keith Olbermann’s summary of the Bush years in 8 concise minutes:

I missed this the first time around, during the ’08 campaign, but Old is the New New pointed me at this terrific poster from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, the people who thought up the “Got Milk?” campaign. Consider it a retrospective on what we are blessedly leaving behind in two days.

With one week to go, Harper’s presents this terrific retrospective index of the Bush administration.

Just a sample:

Estimated total calories members of Congress burned giving Bush’s 2002 State of the Union standing ovations: 22,000

Percentage of the amendments in the Bill of Rights that are violated by the USA PATRIOT Act, according to the ACLU: 50

Minimum number of laws that Bush signing statements have exempted his administration from following: 1,069

Estimated number of U.S. intelligence reports on Iraq that were based on information from a single defector: 100

Number of times the defector had ever been interviewed by U.S. intelligence agents: 0

“In Iraqi culture, throwing shoes at someone is a sign of contempt. Iraqis whacked a statue of Saddam Hussein with their shoes after U.S. marines toppled it to the ground after the 2003 invasion,” writes the Huffington Post.

Just something to keep in mind as you enjoy this clip.

Wellington Grey presents “Opportunity Cost”, an exploration of what we could have done with all the money that George W. Bush squandered.

It’s not “RTMFA”, y’all.

In a long-awaited report, the Senate Intelligence Committee rebuked President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney today for making prewar claims — particularly that Iraq had close ties to Al Qaeda — that were not backed by available intelligence.

The report, which was supported by some Republicans but criticized by many others, accuses the president and other members of his administration of repeatedly exaggerating the evidence of an Al Qaeda connection to take advantage of the charged climate after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Read on.

Former senator Lincoln Chafee, one of the few remaining moderate Republicans that haven’t yet been rounded up and moved to the reservation in Maine, writes about the first year of W’s Presidency with fascinating candor.

When the meeting ended, I felt worse about him than when I arrived. I was shaken. I admire old-fashioned virtues, chief among them honesty. Even at this early date in his tenure, the president had demonstrated an undeniable capacity for mendacity. America took him at his word when he said that he was a uniter, not a divider; that our foreign policy would be humble; that he would address climate change by regulating carbon dioxide. In the first months of his administration he had already turned his back on these bedrock campaign pledges.

My visit with the new president did nothing to assuage my apprehensions. The man—and by that I mean the inner man, the essential man—seemed unequal to the awesome powers entrusted to him. I was worried about the damage he might do over the next few years, never mind in a second term, which seemed unthinkable at the time.

Read on in the Brown Alumni magazine.

President Bush hails the war as a “victory“. Which in and of itself might explain this.

President Bush broke out one of his rarely-used vetoes for a very important cause: torturing people.

He’s for it, of course.

President Bush said Saturday he vetoed legislation that would ban the CIA from using harsh interrogation methods such as waterboarding to break suspected terrorists because it would end practices that have prevented attacks.

Read on at CNN.

A new American Research Group poll has some bad news for our fearless “leader”:

George W. Bush’s overall job approval rating has dropped to a new low in American Research Group polling as 78% of Americans say that the national economy is getting worse according to the latest survey from the American Research Group.

Among all Americans, 19% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 77% disapprove.

19% — that’s the lowest in modern history.

Read on.

(link via Wonkette)

…and it can’t come soon enough.

Fifty percent of Americans now say they strongly disapprove of President George W. Bush’s performance as president.

…it is worth noting that the current 50% “strongly disapprove” figure for Bush is as high as Gallup has ever measured. (A February 1974 poll showed Richard Nixon’s strongly disapprove number at 48%, statistically equivalent to Bush’s current reading on this measure.)

Read on at Gallup.

(link via Metafilter)

Lovable Muppet Dennis Kucinich fought the good fight, but:

The House voted Tuesday to stop Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s, D-Ohio, effort to bring up a debate on impeaching Vice President Dick Cheney.

Kucinich, who is vying for the Democratic presidential nomination, has tried to bring up the issue on three separate occasions. The House voted 218-194 to send it to committee, effectively killing it.

Read on.

With scarcely a mention in the mainstream media, President Bush has ordered up a plan for responding to a catastrophic attack.

In a new National Security Presidential Directive, Bush lays out his plans for dealing with a “catastrophic emergency.”

Under that plan, he entrusts himself with leading the entire federal government, not just the Executive Branch. And he gives himself the responsibility “for ensuring constitutional government.”

He laid this all out in a document entitled “National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51″ and “Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20.”

The White House released it on May 9.

Other than a discussion on Daily Kos led off by a posting by Leo Fender, and a pro-forma notice in a couple of mainstream newspapers, this document has gone unremarked upon.

The subject of the document is entitled “National Continuity Policy.”

It defines a “catastrophic emergency” as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government function.”

This could mean another 9/11, or another Katrina, or a major earthquake in California, I imagine, since it says it would include “localized acts of nature, accidents, and technological or attack-related emergencies.”

The document emphasizes the need to ensure “the continued function of our form of government under the Constitution, including the functioning of the three separate branches of government,” it states.

But it says flat out: “The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government.”

The document waves at the need to work closely with the other two branches, saying there will be “a cooperative effort among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government.” But this effort will be “coordinated by the President, as a matter of comity with respect to the legislative and judicial branches and with proper respect for the constitutional separation of powers.”

Read on.

(link via Metafilter)

Vermont’s state senate passed a largely symbolic resolution on Friday calling on the U.S. Congress to impeach President George W. Bush over his handling of the unpopular Iraq war.

Reflecting growing grass-roots anger over the war, the 16 to 9 vote urges Vermont’s representatives in Washington to introduce a resolution in Congress requiring the House Judiciary Committee to start impeachment proceedings against Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney…

If Vermont’s House follows, rules written by former President Thomas Jefferson to govern the U.S. House could set impeachment proceedings in motion. According to section 603 of Jefferson’s Manual, a state legislature can introduce impeachment charges to Congress.

Read on.

The comic Achewood presents this novel idea for paying for the war.