Dear Mr. Bush:

When the Florida vote was under dispute and it seemed certain that your father's Supreme Court would step in and appoint you to the job, I remarked to a roomful of colleagues that your presidency wouldn't be worth the proverbial bucket of warm feces. It was one of the best predictions I have ever made.

On January 20, 2001, you became the chief executive of a country that was enjoying peace, full employment, a budget surplus, and pre-eminent world stature. You leave us with two unnecessary wars, collapsing employment, broken markets, massive deficits, crippled government finances, and a seriously wounded global position.

While you were in office, your words served as a reliable contrary indicator at every turn. Had I been able to place bets against your promises, I might be a very rich man today. Consider the following:

1. You said you would be a uniter and not a divider, but you were one of the most divisive leaders in this country's history.
2. You said that the U.S. doesn't torture, but it employed torture under your orders.
3. You said you wanted the U.S. to follow a humble foreign policy, but you started two wars.
4. You said that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction. He was not doing so, and you knew it.
5. You said that your administration would respect civil liberties and human rights, but it trampled on them through massive illegal surveillance, the denial of habeus corpus, and political corruption in your Justice Department.
6. You said that you would find Osama Bin Laden, but you called off the search prematurely and he remains at large.
7. You said that you would promote a culture of life, but your wars have caused the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
8. You said that you would pursue war only as a last resort, but your diplomatic efforts prior to the Iraq War were purely window dressing.
9. You said you would respect the rule of law, but your administration ignored treaties and laws whenever they were inconvenient.
10. You said that you would dismiss any member of your administration found to have leaked information in the Valerie Plame case, but you and your vice president personally released the information and then you pardoned the official who lied about the events.
11. You said that your administration would engage in civil discourse, but your spokesmen engaged in a pattern of deception, diversion, irrationality, and vicious personal attacks on those who dissented from your policies.
12. You repeatedly expressed confidence in the soundness of the economy, but the economy fell off a cliff during your second term.
13. You claimed to oppose excess government spending, but you presided over the most profligate and reckless spending in more than 25 years.
14. You congratulated your FEMA director for doing a "heckuva job" in the Hurricane Katrina disaster, but his incompetence and criminal negligence, and your laziness and indifference, caused the deaths of thousands of Americans.
15. You said the scientific evidence on global climate change was not conclusive, but it was conclusive and has showed a crisis of growing urgency.

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Mr. Bush, I believe that, in the years to come, you will be ranked with Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan as among the very worst presidents. Your actions have caused the most rapid decline in our fortunes since the Great Depression, amid the worst leadership since the prelude to the Civil War. Your performance in office has been an unmitigated disaster for our country.

The United States of America and its people will now spend the next several decades trying to repair the damage you did to the nation you claimed to love, but in fact have shamed through your actions. Good riddance, George W. Bush. You will most certainly not be missed.