[The following was written in anticipation of Bush’s expiration. Sadly, both he and McCain went on to live for several months. Not sadly, they are now both tied for 1st place in the pine box derby.]

Former u.$. president George H. W. Bush, one-time CIA director and sire of the world’s most recognizable crime family, is knocking on hell’s door, and the occasion is bitter-sweet. Bush emerged from mediocrity to replace the infamous William Colby as CIA director in 1976, having accrued a dutiful laundry-list of titles and sinecures as unmistakeable proof that he was indeed qualified to represent the whole bourgeoisie, and, after serving as vice-president to senile movie-man, and cowboy Mr. Magoo impersonator Ronald Reagan, was granted that particular infamy.

We have no sympathy for the devil, least of all the Great Satan. To insufficiently hate the enemy is itself a crime, but the manner in which George H. W. Bush goes adrift into oblivion must pull at the heartstrings, for he voids his birth certificate at the peak of decrepitude, rather than the prime of his criminal career. Six and a half years short of a century is apparently the expiration date of banal evil, and it is not at the end of a mob’s noose nor in the dock of a popular court that he leaves this world, but surrounded by friends and family, henchmen and toadies, reporters and biographers.

One cannot help watching imperialist murderers and colonial bigots like Bush or McCain or Kissinger drift off into the sunset, their crimes behind them, and not feel cheated somehow. For now nature must do what we, the purportedly revolutionary left, cannot yet do.

But believe me when I say, we’ll find some way to enjoy ourselves.

(P.S., come on McCain, now’s as good a time as any, make it a twofer!)