Countdown: Chris Matthews Weighs in on Bush's Farewell Speech.

You can watch Bush's farewell speech here. I found it unbearable and can't bring myself to post it. It was simply the usual collection of nonsense, painting the dreadful failure of the last eight years as if the US has been left better off, which it hasn't under any terms.

He leaves a country enmeshed in two unwinnable wars, more hated around the globe than at any time since Vietnam, with the global economy teetering on the brink of collapse and it's reputation as a beacon of hope greatly diminished by the fact that - on his watch - the US broke international law and tortured people. Under his watch the US also took part in extraordinary rendition, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, the suspension of Habeas Corpus and countless other acts which are the opposite of what one would expect from the world's leading democracy.

He has dragged his nation's reputation through the mud.

But he asks that we remember his presidency for the fact that the US was only brutally attacked once on his watch. He literally wants to be remembered for things which didn't happen. There wasn't a repeat of 9-11. He is actually saying, "Well, it could have been worse."

And Dick Cheney, the man who is as responsible as anyone else for the disaster of the last eight years is similarly unrepentant:

Mr Cheney himself is busy rewriting history, even as he packs his bags and prepares to leave Washington for Wyoming next week. Last night he was at it again, repeating the discredited claims that Saddam Hussein worked with al-Qa'ida and denying all responsibility for the economic calamity that has crippled America and much of the world as well.

Mr Cheney even rejected the evidence of recent polls, which show he is overwhelmingly unpopular among the American people. "I don't buy that," he said. He also brushed aside fresh revelations about they way a suspect in the 9/11 plot was tortured to within an inch of his life at Guantanamo. "All of the techniques that were utilised were authorised," Mr Cheney said. "None of them were in violation of the basic fundamental tenets that we used out there."

With breathtaking chutzpah, Mr Cheney told the veteran PBS journalist Jim Lehrer that his administration bore no blame for the economic meltdown. "I think we had good economic policies, especially in the early years." The terror threat was inherited, he added, because of poor handling by previous presidents. As far as Mr Cheney was concerned, everything went just great in the Bush years.

Neither Bush nor Cheney have learned anything whilst in office and Cheney has now adopted the McCain attitude to polls which find him unpopular by simply dismissing them with, "I don't buy that."

It used to be that the Republican party was known, or at least claimed to be, the party of "personal responsibility".

It's hard to detect any strain of that from these two buggers as they refuse to accept responsibility for anything.

UPDATE:



Here's a truncated version of Cheney's view of the last eight years. It's breathtaking to see just how removed from reality his version of events is. He's still pushing the Saddam/al Qaeda link for God's sake. And his administration's unprecedented unpopularity is simply dismissed as "cocktail talk".

Tags: Bush, Cheney, farewell, 9-11