Thoughts on the 18th of January, 2009 From Outside the Country.

Bucharest
2 days before inauguaration of Barak Obama, the first really elected President of the United States in nearly a decade. (Thank God for term limits and American Can-do, not to mention "Can-don't.")

With fond apologies to Bob Hope*, our most American of English men, we say a heartfelt, “Buh-bye, George.

Thanks for the Memory

Thanks for the memory

Of Cheney and Enron, our house and savings gone
A voting fraud we couldn’t laud, a war that won’t get won.

We owe you so much!

Thanks for the memory

Religious zealots on the rise, the end of political compromise.

And church and state un-separate, with congress in collaborate
Without, of course, any real debate. And friends who now despise.
We owe you so much!

Many's the time your friends feasted
You let us all be Middle-Easted

You failed to see the harm you'd done.
Tell Dad don’t push the other son.
You cost us so much!

And thanks for the memory

Of bubbles burst, you did your worst.

America's no longer first.
You made Nixon seem less cursed.
You damaged so much.

Thanks for the memory

Making us a laughingstock,  and causing cash gridlock.

And “bailouts" that put us in hock.
China owns us barrel, stock and lock.

How selfish it was.

And thanks for the memory

See George we took our country back
You caused us to elect Barak.
The system now is back on track.
We thank you… not much.

*For those 6 or seven of you out there not old enough to remember, "Thanks for the Memories" was the theme song of one of the finest Americans ever to have been born in Britain with a girl's name. (Leslie, forgedaboudid. Remember, John Wayne's real first name was Marian.)