The braggart bandit

As Ronald Reagan would say, "Here we go again."

George W(ZZZZZZZ) Bush is at that inevitable endpoint of lame-ducktitude when presidents begin recounting their atrocities. Whoops, "accomplishments." The self-congratulatory lists are inevitably a long soliloquy of criminal behavior -- grand larceny at gunpoint of the American people.

The current Ogre in the Oval lauds his "liberating of 50 million people" in Iraq -- while looting Americans of $1 trillion. (To call Americans "taxpayers" would be like calling the businesses that mafiosos rob "clients").

Mr. ZZZZZZZ also crows about his focus on helping Africa with its AIDS and malaria crises, at the expense of Joe America of billions more dollars.

He seems most proud of his theft of tens of billions from free people so that irresponsible Americans can have cheaper prescription drugs.

In proclaiming the above, he states with misty eyes "I've kept my values." Indeed, he'll get no argument here about his steadfast, destructive altruism. But the tears belong to us: hard-working Americans who wish to spend our money on ourselves and our beloved instead of strangers in foreign lands or hapless pathetics within our own boundaries -- but who get no say in what should be a private matter.

To see this reprehensible bandit yammer on is to watch a Mafia kingpin brag of his "protection" for his community. To see the media blithely report such recounting of atrocities is to feel oneself living in a surreal world of the macabre.

Where have you gone, dear Thomas Paine? We need your wise words in our time of the braggart bandit.