In 2000, I learned that my now deceased Grandfather was not going to vote in the Presidential election. Grandfather was a man of strong opinions and was a staunch Conservative, much more than myself, truth be told. I learned that he was sitting out the election because he refused to vote for George Bush. In fact, he despised the entire family. At the time, I scratched my head and wondered: What was his problem with Bush? But now, I realize that, as with most things, he was 100% in the right.
I’ve never been a staunch supporter of George Bush. I’ve known, since he was my governor in Texas, that he was never, truly a Conservative. In fact I suspected that he held more than a bit of disdain for Conservatives. But given the choice between him and Al Gore, I, like many, voted for the better of two evils. I thought that he had to be better than Al Gore, who actually campaigned on expanding gun control. But, I have to wonder at this juncture, if we all would have been better off with Gore in the White House.
Stay with me here. I will explain.
It pains me to admit it, but the Left has been somewhat right about President Bush. Not about the Bush is Hitler thing (if he was, his critics would be in internment camps) but about his complete unsuitability for the office of President of the United States and his utter stupidity.
This man has virtually destroyed the Republican Party and has brought back the Left from the political graveyard.
Think back to the 1990’s. Capitalism and the Free Market had triumphed. The Soviet Union had fallen and the Left was in retreat all around the world. Even Bill Clinton had to make a speech about how the era of Big Government was over. Can you imagine any politician, Republican or Democrat who would say this today?
Now look where we are today. The Left is expanding everywhere. Latin America is voting in Leftist tyrants and Russia is returning to its old, thuggish ways. Things haven’t looked this grim since the late 1970’s when another idiotic, clueless man was sitting in the Oval Office.
George Bush isn’t completely responsible for these problems, but I believe he has to shoulder a lot of the blame.
Let’s start at the beginning.
The defining moment of George W. Bush’s presidency was September 11, 2001. Conservative’s cheered his defiant speech at the site of the World Trade Center and we thought: now here is a man who will get the job done.
For a while, that’s exactly what he did. In a matter of months, the Taliban in Afghanistan was defeated. President Bush then began to make the case for a campaign in Iraq. Iraq seemed to be a logical, next step in the War on Terror. Saddam Hussein was a supporter and financer of Islamic Terrorists (eg. the fund for Palestinian suicide bombers) and was a serial violator of the cease-fire agreement that ended the Gulf War.
Unlike the Afghanistan campaign though, Bush carefully attempted to build a coalition, with the help of Prime Minister Tony Blair and even went to the UN and got some resolutions passed. The UN balked about the use of force and eventually, a year after the initial hints about a campaign in Iraq, the U.S. military finally invaded. That campaign was a brilliant success and Baghdad fell shortly afterwards.
So what happened after that?
George Bush happened.
George Bush tried to run a politically correct war. Our soldiers were burdened with ridiculous rules of engagement against enemies who violated every rule of war. Instead of a quick firing squad that is the penalty under the Geneva Convention for combatants fighting out of uniform, we were subjected to Constitution bending military tribunals and detention camps halfway around the world from the site of capture.
But it’s not just about Iraq.
- George Bush signed into law a blatantly unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment: The McCain-Feingold Campaign finance bill.
- George Bush has supported government spending that would have made Conservatives scream in the days of Bill Clinton. His support of Ted Kennedy’s education bill is a particularly egregious example.
- George Bush has been no real friend of gun owners. The only real pro-gun act of his administration was Attorney General John Ashcroft’s decision that the 2nd Amendment was in fact an individual right. The current Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales wants to expand the powers of the ATF. George Bush also cynically used the support of gun owners when he stated that he would sign a renewed assault weapons ban even though he knew fully well that it would never pass the Republican Congress. With friends like this….
- George Bush has presided over the most enormous expansion of the Federal Government in my lifetime. If Clinton had even tried to expand the Federal Government at the scale that Bush has over the last 6 ½ years, the Republican would have been up in arms.
- and finally, the cause of this post and the straw that finally broke the camels back, Illegal Immigration. Bush’s pandering to the Kennedy wing of the Democratic Party on this issue is bad enough, but his patronizing and condescending attitude to those who had been his most stalwart supporters is too much to take. I find it impossible to support a man whose administration thinks that a gun store owner that makes a few minor paper work violations should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, but feels that people who have blatantly and arrogantly violated our immigration laws should be forgiven and even praised.
So there you have it. As I said above, I believe now that it would have been better for America if Al Gore had become President in 2000. When I told this to Denise, she was flabbergasted. But let me explain. If Al Gore had become President, I suspect he would have been a disaster after the September 11 attacks. He would have sought the Diplomatic route and would have made an attempt to find out why they hate us. Islamic attacks would have increased and this method of dealing with terrorism would have been shown to be a failure. The Republicans would have won overwhelmingly in 2004 and a new Republican president would have robustly attacked Islamic terrorism with the country more or less united behind him; thus, no anti-war movement and no revanchist Left.
Compare that with where we are today.
The Democratic Party holds the House and Senate where the Speaker of the House is a far Left moonbat from San Francisco.
The Left is on the march and has expanded into formerly staunch Conservative bastions like New Hampshire. Where in 1992, the Democrats had to run as Conservatives to win (remember Bill Clinton’s promise of a middle income tax cut), they now run openly as Leftists and have a good chance of winning with that tactic.
In conclusion, George W. Bush has been a disaster for the Republican Party and for the United States of America. His lack of leadership, his utter lack of eloquence and sheer stupidity has made the immediate future grim for Conservatives, Libertarians and believers in limited government. I hate to agree with Jesse Jackson in anything but I have to say that he may have been on the something when he warned America to stay away from the Bushes.
