Wednesday, November 5, 2008
It's a shame that a piece like this, written by a former Kerry employee, actually takes courage to write today:
...Just as Americans have gained perspective on how challenging Truman's presidency was in the wake of World War II, our country will recognize the hardship President Bush faced these past eight years -- and how extraordinary it was that he accomplished what he did in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems. He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.
Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty -- a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House.
Of course, the truth is that a pretty fair number of us have almost always been pretty vicious to out leaders on the way out. That doesn't necessarily make it right.
I agree ... he has kept America safe during a time of great danger. Democracies tend to be very short-sighted - a strength as well as a weakness. Nevertheless, I think that history will judge Bush much better than his contemporaries.
The only disgrace is that he and the rest of his band of war criminals are not incarcerated. He has wilfully and knowing violated the law, and he has ignored, at best, the Constitution he swore to uphold. He took office with the country enjoying peace and prosperity and will leave office with it bankrupt and at war. By any objective measure, George Bush is the worst president in the history of the United States, and we will be generations trying to undo the damage he and his cronies have inflicted.
Let's be clear: The real disgrace is Bush's treatment of the American people.
A president is not a king, but a servant of the public.
It is the president who owes respect to the people, from whom he derives his power and authority, and not the other way around. The people rule the president, not vice versa. In America, it is government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Of course, every president is entitled to the benefit of the doubt at the beginning of his or her administration, but after eight years of grossly incompetent, staggeringly corrupt, and disrespectful leadership, George W. Bush has squandered all his venture capital.
Bush earned all the disrespect he now suffers. It isn't easy to alienate 75% of the American public, by any means. And that's why when he speaks in public these days, nobody listens to him any more. Nobody cares what he has to say. He has already become invisible and irrelevant.
The smartest thing John McCain did in his campaign was to keep Bush as far away as possible--for the first time in memory, a sitting president did not make a single public appearance with the presidential candidate of his own party. John McCain, despite not making it to the White House and despite all his faults, is a greater man than Bush will ever be. Bush isn't worthy of licking McCain's shoes.
It is for all these reasons and more that the vast majority of Americans, as indicated by every poll, will be relieved when the Bush administration finally ends in January.
To all those who say that dissent is the highest form of patriotism,
prepare for a lot of patriotism for the next four years.
Ah, so dissent is unpatriotic when it's a Republican in the White House, but patriotic when it's a Democrat. This puts the lie to the oft-heard claim that Republicans are more patriotic than Democrats. No, they're patriotic when their guys are in charge. I know the Democrats are feeling very proud of their country this week.
But even now, Democratic voters should be prepared to dissent whenever they disagree with the decisions of their government. So should the Republicans. The right to petition our government with our grievances is enshrined in the very first amendment to the constitution. Our country's founders thought very highly of political dissent. That is, after all, how our country came to be independent of its British rulers in the first place.
The truth should be obvious to everyone: Nobody has a monopoly on patriotism. We all love our country, but get pissed off about it now and then, and even talk trash about it when we're angry. That's what a grown-up loving relationship looks like. Republicans may be pretty angry these days, but no one should doubt that they love this country, too. Questioning people's patriotism whenever they disagree is childish, and beneath all of us.
It's been fun. I hope that somebody here stops for a minute and considers even for an instant some of the things I've said. It's a Jewish proverb that "He is wise who learns from everyone." That means even people who disagree with you.
Perhaps this means that future postings to this blog, as to others in the right-wing blogosphere, will address the flaws in Democratic economic and foreign policy proposals from a sophisticated, mature perspective, so that the public can learn how to make things better and hold the Democrats accountable. Maybe this blog will devote its time, once again, to identifying and exposing America's and Israel's true enemies, the crazies abroad who are trying to bomb our country and kill our citizens, and educating Americans about them. Maybe the people here will devote their energies to doing their part, small though it may be, to strengthening the unity of country, so that we can face our enemies and our problems together, rather than mired in division.
I want to believe that, because I think it would make our country better, and reduce the hatred and acrimony. But we all know that it probably won't happen. Instead this blog will return to scapegoating fellow Americans and Jews who disagree with the vaunted ideology, to breeding conspiracy theories about secret librul plots to infiltrate our schools to indoctrinate children into becoming Democratic-voting zombies, to writing off entire American cities as Commie mini-Republics and parts of the "fake" America (clearly displaying the ignorance of people who have never lived in a real Communist-occupied city), to claiming that being a liberal means being a traitor and an Ahmadinejad-lover.
Hey, whatever gets you going. But one can always hope... Good luck.
Your comments have to constitute the longest goodbye in internet history.
It's not quite clear to me if the writer is complaining about the dissing of W. the person or the Office of President. But I do think that this kind of high and mighty editorial is exactly the sort of attitude that got us into the mess that this country faces now. Undue respect for a Rumsfeld, a Cheney, and a Bush, swayed us to go down the wrong path with Iraq. Rants like this are merely an impotent finger-wagging at the American people; rants like this are the refuge of a party that has nothing much to be proud of in the Bush legacy.
You are basically politically retarded! Do you really think everything that happens during a presidential term is 100% the fault of the president? What an idiot! The stock market crash and failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was, in fact, the result of Democratic stone-walling of regulations that GEORGE W. BUSH attempted to implement! It's the Democratic-run congress and senate that has played a MUCH larger role in the state of affairs we have today. Your only accurate point is that he is not a king, and cannot, therefore make solitary decisions. I believe if he were, we would be much better off.
Dumb ass.
The American people just elected an instrument of the devil. They'll find out what real misery and hardship are soon enough. After a year of Obama, if we're still here, they'll be looking back on the Carter years as the good old days.