8 Years Flashed Before Our Eyes!

Were they divine, were they crappy, were they otherwise? The "Bush Era" is croaking to a close. Took us all down a notch or two. At least.

Here's one pop cultural historian's take:

"In November 2000, the United States held a presidential election and nobody knew who won, so we just kind of made up an outcome and tried to act like that was normal. Less than a year later, airplanes flew into office buildings and everybody cried for two weeks. And then Enron went bankrupt and then the U.S. became a rogue state, and then The Simple Life premiered, and then gasoline became unaffordable, and then our Olympic team lost to Puerto Rico, and then we reelected the same unqualified president we never really elected in the first place. Later there would be some especially devastating hurricanes and the release of a horrible movie titled Crash." - Chuck Klosterman - April, 2006 from his collection of essays titled IV.

UPDATE: I found this via Glen Greenwald quoting G.K. Chesterton's Heretics, and, well, I don't know for some reason it seems apropos:

"It may be said with rough accuracy that there are three stages in the life of a strong people. First, it is a small power, and fights small powers. Then it is a great power, and fights great powers. Then it is a great power, and fights small powers, but pretends that they are great powers, in order to rekindle the ashes of its ancient emotion and vanity. After that, the next step is to become a small power itself."