After Eight Years, We’re Burning BushWatch

by Mike Hall, Jan 20, 2009

Up in flames: 8 years of Bush debacles.

Today, we bid farewell to BushWatch. That special section on our website where you could always go if you were in need of a little outrage or indignation over—repeat after me—”former” President Bush’s most recent slap at workers, gift to corporate cronies or bow down to extremist ideologues.

Click here, here, here, here and here for our five-part look back at BushWatch.

When we first started BushWatch eight years ago, we were sometimes genuinely shocked at the actions of this so-called “compassionate conservative” who had spent the entire campaign convincing voters he really wasn’t that extreme.

For example, he picked a Labor Secretary nominee (she later withdrew) who said the Labor Department staffers who disagreed with her opposition to basic worker protections like the minimum wage were “Marxists.” Now, that caught us off guard.

But after about a month, when Bush had moved to privatize Social Security, proposed his first tax cut for the wealthy and overturned a bunch of worker protection rules, we pretty much were out of shock mode.

However, over the years, whenever a new BushWatch reared its ugly little head, we were occasionally heard to mutter,

Just when you’ve thought you’ve seen it all,  you haven’t.

Like this past summer, when it was discovered the Bush Labor Department had secretly written a rule that could increase workers’ exposure to dangerous chemicals and toxins. And, on top of that, it would tie the hands of any new administration from enacting any new safety rules.

While we are holding a virtual bonfire of BushWatch today, it won’t completely disappear from the scene. It will be archived on www.aflcio.org so that down the road, when someone says to you “Well, he wasn’t really that bad,” all you’ve got to do is click here.

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