'Let Me At That Fucker,' Says Branch Of Knowledge
CRAWFORD, TX—Claiming it can barely wait any longer to weigh in on the former president’s eight years in office, history, the branch of knowledge consisting of the recorded past, reported today that it’s licking its chops to render a definitive judgment of George W. Bush.
“Oh man, I’ve been holding out a while for this one—just let me at that fucker once and for all,” said the ongoing timeline of human events, which acknowledged it’s been champing at the bit to properly evaluate the 43rd president since he left office in January 2009. “I’m raring to get that son of a bitch in my crosshairs, carefully analyze each of his foreign and domestic policies, and develop a consensus view of his administration that will endure in the annals of American politics. Let’s do this!”
“I swear, I’m going to thoroughly and impartially assess the shit out of the Bush tax cuts, the TARP bank bailouts, and Abu Ghraib,” history continued. “And I can barely keep myself from scrutinizing the Patriot Act from both legalistic and moralistic standpoints right now. Just you wait until I get my hands on that thing.”
Telling reporters it practically salivates at the thought of critically examining the two-term president law by law and executive order by executive order, the all-encompassing compendium of human achievements said that when the time is right, nothing will be able to stop it from producing a single overarching assessment of the Bush legacy that will be learned and accepted by future generations of Americans for ages to come.
History added that while it often takes decades for it to accurately parse the accomplishments and shortcomings of a presidency, it’s “good to go on this one” and vowed to jump at the first chance it gets to take a definitive position on the former commander-in-chief’s leadership abilities and the substance of his policies in light of readily available data on the U.S. debt, the environment, citizens’ standard of living, and outcomes of foreign conflicts.
“By the time that son of a bitch was reelected in 2004, I was already itching to parallel the Iraq War and the Vietnam War in rigorous intellectual detail,” said the academic study of the past, noting that it is equally impatient to compare and contrast the administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina with previous disaster relief efforts. “Christ, I can already imagine going to town on the constitutional implications of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp or identifying and elucidating the effects of Bush’s financial deregulation on the housing and credit crises.”
“And if you think I’m going to miss my shot to examine the bastard’s denial of climate change through the lens of contemporary scientific consensus, then you’ve got another fucking thing coming,” the perpetually growing branch of knowledge added.
History went on to say that it had already sized up numerous aspects of the Bush legacy for in-depth scholarly appraisal, admitting that it was eager to “have its way” with Bush’s stances on stem cells, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the near doubling of the national debt, the Battle of Tora Bora, warrantless wiretapping by the NSA, the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, Medicare Part D, and the 2003 “Mission Accomplished” speech.
According to history, it has felt tempted on numerous occasions to issue an authoritative critique of Bush’s legacy, either through an empirical analysis of the No Child Left Behind program’s effects on academic achievement or determining once and for all whether the president’s authorization of enhanced interrogation techniques opened the door to torture. However, the academic discipline has consistently held its tongue, waiting until the right time to conclusively weigh the positive and negative aspects of the Bush administration before delivering its ultimate verdict.
“Do you have any idea how many times I’ve wanted to just say ‘fuck it’ and issue a definitive ranking of George W. Bush’s presidency?” asked the chronicle of all human events. “But at least the longer I wait, the more I’ll be able to savor my evaluation of the Bush era’s political, economic, and societal impacts when the time finally comes to rate this cocksucker. God only knows what’ll happen when I start doing that.”
“The one thing that’s for sure is that I’m going to remember him as dumb as fucking dog shit,” history added. “But that probably goes without saying.”