Lest we forget

As the day approaches when, thankfully, US president George W. Bush leaves office finally and for good, it is good to look back at some of the firsts and milestones for this person:

George W. Bush is the first person to:

• Be the Texas governor who officially proclaimed an official 'Jesus Day';

• Be the first US president ever elected to office by the US Supreme Court;

• Be the US president who ignored all warnings to preside over an attack on US soil which took more lives than any on record;

• Be the US president who squandered unprecedented international goodwill towards our country after 9/11, and turned it into active international hatred against our nation in a mere twelve months;

• Achieve the lowest approval rating for any US president in history (as low as 17%);

• Achieve the highest DISAPPROVAL rating for any US president ever recorded (78%);

• Be the ONLY US president to have an official 'Absent Without Leave (AWOL) on his record;

• Be the US president to enter office with the HIGHEST budget surplus on record;

• Be the US president to leave office with the highest budget DEFICT on record;

• Be the first US president to leave office with stock market averaging 10% below the level when he took office;

• Be the only US president to preside over a SECOND US and international DEPRESSION;

• Be the first US president to officially sanction torture;

• Be the first US president to officially sanction wiretapping of US citizens - without warrants;

• Be the first US president to engage our country in a 'preemptive' war against another country;

• Be the only US president to withdraw official support for the international Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty;

• Be the only US president to withdraw official support for the Kyoto Protocol - an international treaty to reduce global warming emissions;

• Be the first US president to pass a law authorizing imprisonment of US citizens without trial - the Patriot Act;

• Be the only US president to officially sanction the denial of habeas corpus for US citizens;

• Be the only US president ever to instruct political operatives to override scientific data with political doggerel;

• Be the only US president to implement a tax cut for the richest 5% of the people in the face of massive national budget deficits;

• Be the only person in history more disliked by Arabs than Israelis - 3 times more hated than Ariel Sharon in fact;

• Be the only US president to preside over a national disaster - Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans - where federal response was so pathetic that international aid was offered by dozens of other countries;

• Be the only US president to be awarded the International Medal of Peace (by the Global Peace Coalition) in the midst of two wars, one of which was an unprovoked invasion of another country by that president;

• Be the only US president in history to have shoes hurled at his head during a press conference.

And, lest we forget - let's keep in mind these other memorable events and happenings during the year 2008 from HUFFINGTON POST . . . .