With Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader’s approval ratings sliding to 29% in one recent poll, the temptation to tapdance on this sorry excuse for a President’s political grave is, frankly, more than I can resist. For a Chief Executive who rode into Washington promising to be a uniter instead of a divider, who promised to “restore honor and dignity” to the White House…well, let’s just say that tne reality of George W. Bush has fallen far short of the high-flying rhetoric.
I can understand how some Republicans may have been put off by Bill Clinton’s extramarital foibles. While Clinton may have been guilty of nothing many Republicans haven’t engaged in themselves, when your political philosophy rests on the bedrock of “family values” (whatever the Hell THAT means), ya gotta have standards, eh? By that definition, Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader represented a new sheriff in town. Things were going to be different. Government would be conducted by people with strong moral principles, people who understood that they were doing the People’s Work. What they didn’t count on was a truth as old as time and politics itself: Power corrupts, and absolute power is, well, a whole lotta fun, to be perfectly honest.
While the tenor of government is certainly different under the aegis of Republicans, the bottom line is still the same. Corruption, venality, and self-interest still rule the day…much the same as they did during the halcyon reign of Bill Clinton. The difference is that Republicans seem to see feeding at the trough as their birthright, while Democrats at least seem to understand at some level that doing so is immoral and unethical at the very least, and illegal at worst.
Perhaps the biggest mistake made by Bush and his minions was in being arrogant enough to think that they were going to ride into town and change the culture of political Washington. While it’s true that Republicans could reasonably have expected to tinker around the margins, to think that they would be able to make wholesale changes in the moral and ethical fiber of the career bureaucracy simply exposes BushWorld as the out of touch place it truly is.
Of course, 9.11 changed everything. Though I’m not going to get into the “what did they know, and when did they know it” argument here, it is a legitimate question deserving of far more attention than it’s recieved to date. No, when you consider the lack of leadership, the terrorist threat that we created in Iraq, and the senseless, wasteful war there that shows no sign of ending anytime soon, there is plenty to wonder about.
It takes a special person to be able to steal an election, lie his way into an immoral war of occupation, and be able to use 9.11 as a means to justify nibbling away at civil rights and our right to privacy…and I don’t mean “special” in a good way. Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader is without a doubt the Worst President EVER, a leader incapable of uniting, but more than capable of working to reward his narrow-minded, self-absorbed, hate-fueled base.
Still glad you voted Republican?
Yes, it should go without saying, but…WE DESERVE BETTER.
