President Bush made many of us radicals. Normally staid and "responsible" people came to hate President Bush and use harsh language in criticizing his administration. My local newspaper, the Kingston Daily Freeman publishes in upstate New York, in a congressional district which includes one of the most liberal congressmen in the House of Representatives, Maurice Hinchey. Still, it came as a surprise to read the below editorial the other day in which the paper slammed Bush in terms normally reserved for liberal magazines like the Nation.

EDITORIAL: Bush's watch

Sunday, January 18, 2009 3:06 AM EST

IN TWO DAYS, the world will watch yet another peaceful and orderly transfer of United States executive power.

It is a spectacle that, even in mundane times, inspires a considerable sense of awe about the mechanisms of power — that “system that would run of itself” — established under the Constitution.

There is nothing mundane about the context of either this inauguration of Barack Obama or the leave-taking of George W. Bush. It promises to be riveting theater.

The incoming president has scored a historic victory, the first African-American to win election to the highest office in the land. The administration of the oath of office truly will mark a watershed moment in the nation’s tortured history of trying to realize its highest ideals.

The outgoing president leaves his nation in far, far worse shape than he found it eight tumultuous and divisive years ago.

Bush leaves the nation with two wars, one entirely of his making upon a false premise.

He presided over a disastrous government response to the dire needs of millions of its citizens in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

The economy is in crisis, likely the worst shape in 80 years and still declining.

THERE’S NO dodging the responsibility for any of this. It wasn’t just a bad break that it happened on his watch. The American people hire a president to foresee threats, react ably to complex situations, extend aid when it is needed, and otherwise pilot the ship of state through all manner of the unforeseen. When the president fails to do these things, regardless of the circumstances, he has failed to do his job.

There is plenty of evidence that, prior to Sept. 11, 2001, Bush did not take the threat of al-Qaida as seriously as did President Bill Clinton.

Transition briefers noted indifference on the part of many incoming officials and, in the case of Vice President Dick Cheney and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a distracted obsession with Iraq that would lead to further trouble down the road.

Domestic counterterrorism was demoted within the White House.

The administration bungled even the bluntest warnings of evidence of terrorist planning in August 2001 — a memo headlined and concluding that “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” and even a direct, face-to-face CIA briefing in Crawford, Texas. To that special briefing, Bush allegedly responded, “All right. You’ve covered your ass, now.”

That was on Bush’s watch.

From an unsteady beginning on the morning and afternoon of Sept. 11, Bush literally found his voice with firefighters and a bullhorn at Ground Zero, rallying the nation to regain its footing. The Afghanistan War, managed by the Central Intelligence Agency, was an initial, smashing success.

BUT the administration botched its opportunity to trap Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants in the rugged White Mountains of eastern Afghanistan.

The Iraq War was the result of a long-running, ideological obsession on the part of a determined and influential coterie of neo-conservatives within the administration. The war was sold to Congress and the American people through a combination of misreading intelligence and willful dissembling. The woeful planning for the invasion and occupation of Iraq relied on a series of faulty assumptions, including that Iraqis would welcome Americans with open arms as liberators, rather than invaders. As Iraq teetered at the brink of anarchy, Bush engaged in a public relations stunt, landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier to be photographed against the background of a banner with the patently false assertion, “Mission Accomplished.”

Bush appointed Michael Brown, who lacked the requisite expertise, to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency. A videotape of Bush being briefed the day before the Hurricane Katrina disaster portrayed a passive chief executive who didn’t ask a single question, even though federal emergency officials had been warning for days that catastrophe was possible. The president was oblivious enough to casually assert in the fateful days immediately following the disaster that Brown was “doing a heck of a job,” while Americans were shocked at the images of their fellow citizens stranded helplessly on rooftops, pleading for help that was slow to arrive.

He institutionalized the use of torture by the United States, degrading the nation’s moral standing while quite possibly violating both federal and international law.

FINALLY, Bush was asleep at the switch as the nation’s economic well-being was gambled away on a housing bubble built on bad mortgages. The administration’s response since has been uncertain and ineffective, to say the least.

So it is that this Inauguration Day is anticipated with as much relief as anticipation. An exhausted nation is desperate to regroup under new leadership.

We don’t doubt the quality of Bush’s heart in his public service. But, really, don’t let the door bump you as you leave, Mr. President.