Schadenfreude

One of my favourite German words is Schadenfreude—meaning taking delight in someone else’s misfortune. It’s always considered bad form to do this, of course, but when the person having troubles is George Bush, well, a little Schadenfreude is almost required.

This time, it’s George Bush’s former press secretary, Scott McClellan, whose tell-all book has Bush and his buddies squirming. What had me chuckling the most was Bush loyalists trying to make McClellan sound crazy (the “that doesn’t sound like Scott” line) to the White House trying to re-write history by pretending that McClellan was “basically” fired.

We know that Karl Rove was the evil genius behind the Bush-Cheney regime, and was probably deeply involved in all sorts of activities for which he will probably never be held accountable. We also all know that Bush himself will go down in history as the worst president in US history, so you expect them to try and squirm their way out of being caught by the truth.

You can really tell this regime is winding down. It smells like desperation. So a little Schadenfreude is completely understandable.