The Omnipotent Poobah Speaks!

When Stephen Colbert coined the term “truthiness“, he hit the nail on the head as it applies to our Barney Fife administration. The Great Flip-Flopper sends his PR minions to spin corrections to stories and statements so often, they can “truthifully” claim they did or didn’t say something as it suits them. The spinning doesn’t only apply to press releases though, official records haven’t been kept or “lost” by the millions. They have a similar problem with revealing anything other than name, rank, and serial number to investigations or media questions.

Over the course of our nation’s eight year descent into hell, many a pundit and WH gossip has speculated about how George’s legacy will stack up against history. Some think he’s a misunderstood genius who’ll simultaneously supplant Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson as the light of historical perspective illuminates his flowing, angelic robes. Others figure he’s an idiot savant who’ll put Warren G. Harding’s bottom-dwelling position in serious jeopardy. Either way, Lil’ Dub has used the lard bucket of truthiness so often almost nothing about his administration can be conclusively proven beyond a shadow of a doubt - certainly one thing that keeps impeachment at arm’s length.

This seems an odd result considering the rainforest-destroying number of books written about the jughead, but look closely and you’ll see that many of the books are based on recollections and recalcitrant witnesses with any number of axes to grind. The official public records the books cite are heavily edited or redacted at best and spun like a dervish at a hula-hoop convention at worst. Historians will need something more to go on. You know, unadulterated diaries, letters, email, or records that should have been retained under various federal laws? But George’s penchant for keeping everything secret - including Barney’s undisclosed location - cuts against him. With no unambiguous proof one way or another, his legacy will be based on the potentially bad juju handed down by contemporary authors projected against the public fiascoes we do know the details of.

It’s sad that future generations may not be able to learn all the cautionary lessons of the Bushonian era. What they do see will be stained by truthiness as George and his apologists spin it. The minutia of day-to-day governmental operation will have evaporated into the ether and we’ll probably never know how many of his fiascoes really played out behind the scenes. Still, the truthy mash-up he has left will give a relative, though incomplete, accounting of his legacy.

I’m confident that record will be enough to see him as the crapweasel he is.

The Poobah is a featured contributor at Bring It On!

This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.