GOOD RIDDANCE GOOBER

January 20 is reported to be an historic day. After months of campaigning hype and speculation, Barack Hussein Obama will be sworn in as the 43rd president of the United States. This administration arguably is in one of the most perilous times in American history. We face major economic challenges. A war on 2 fronts, a sky rocketing national debt and a crumbling infrastructure are some of the many other problems we as a nation face. We did not get into this mess over night and some say we are beyond the capacity to ever get out. Many people are counting on this administration to do a lot as well they should. A lot was promised to us in the way of change and this is the time where the change must be delivered. We no longer have the luxury of complacency. There is no time to drag our heels and continue to do things the way they have always been done. Many people question if this administration can bring us the change that we so desperately need. Indeed I myself do not know if they can but there is one thing I do know. THE LAST EIGHT YEARS HAVE BEEN A DISASTER FOR THIS COUNTRY, WHAT EVER HAPPENS I WILL NEVER WANT TO GO BACK TO THE ADMINISTRATION THAT IS LEAVING OFFICE. I find it hard to believe but some people that I know (some of these people are my good friends) still love George W and what he stood for. I still respect these people and they are entitled to their opinion. This article will be about the reasons that I want this administration as far out of the white house as I can get them.

Before I go any further I must state that I have never met any of the people I am writing about. I do not know if they are good people, good husbands, good fathers, or nice guys. I can not judge these men and women as people. I can only judge them by how they have acted in their official roles and by what effect their actions have had on our country. It is not just the president I don’t like but the people that he has surrounded himself with. I must also say that this argument will be a rant rather then my usual logically structured arguments. Three of the four people I will mention are no longer serving in the George Bush white house, never the less the had significant influence over his policy.


Karl Rove (Deputy Chief of Staff)

No one disputes the electoral genius of Karl Rove. The thing that I dislike about this man is the methods he used to get his man into office. Getting one side of the country to hate the other is one of the many tactics he employed. His ability to demonize the people that disagreed with him is something that was a mainstay of the bush presidency. I understand that part of politics is to make the other guy look bad but there are times when I think that Mr. Rove just went too far. I think one of the fundamental flaws of this white house was a failure to see that you can disagree with someone and still think their opinion has some value. Very rarely is a viewpoint 100% wrong. The opposing viewpoint may have things that could be valuable. To devalue the opposing view to the point where you can’t even see its merits is a flawed way of doing things. Karl Rove did not invent these feelings. I think the fear, resentment, and disrespect were already present in us. I can not blame Mr. Rove for how people feel, but I can blame him for using those feelings for political gain at the expense of our national consciousness. No wonder liberals had a field day when the permanent republican majority lasted a little over 3 years.

Donald Rumsfeld (Secretary of Defense)

Even if you manage to convince me that the war in Iraq was necessary, the way we went to war was a total disaster. The cavalier attitude that this group of nuts took us to war was shameful. I admit that there are some wars that we may have to fight but we should only fight them when there is no other alternative. I don’t think anyone would make the argument that this administration did every thing they could to keep us out of the Iraqi theater. Watching this man tell the terrorist to “bring it on” illustrates the callousness this man ran the pentagon with. I am sure that the phrase “bring it on” is exactly what all those mothers and fiancés and brothers and sisters of all those troops were thinking when their love ones were deployed.
In addition to the attitude which this pentagon took us to war the methods of operation were a strategic disaster. We went into a war without enough troops. We went to war with a strategy that was based more on a video game then historic, documented plans of action. We thought the war would take six months and it didn’t (AND FOR EVERYONE WHO SAYS THE WHITE HOUSE NEVER SAID THAT WATCH THE FREAKIN VIDEO TAPE). We didn’t have the necessary equipment, support staff, or even health benefits in place to support a prolonged engagement.

In addition to this all the assumptions the pentagon made about this war were wrong. We (and I say we in the sense of country not counting the individuals who opposed this war from the beginning) assumed the war would take six months. It didn’t. We assumed that the oil revenue would pay for the war. It didn’t. We assumed that the people would see us as liberators and all be on our side. They weren’t. We assumed that dismantling the country’s infrastructure, army police force and civil service would help bring peace. It. didn’t. We thought that letting people loot and riot would cement our image as liberators. It didn’t. We thought that since they were all Iraqi’s they would get along. They didn’t. In addition, we were told that Saddam was working for Al Qaeda. He wasn’t. We were told that Al Qaeda was operating in Iraq. They weren’t (until we got there). We were told that we would find weapons of mass destruction and we didn’t. You may be able to successfully argue that this war was necessary but you cannot argue that both the plan for this war and the execution of said plan have been PISS POOR.

John Ashcroft (Attorney General)

I think the justice department in the last eight years has done more to damage this country then any third world dictator. The fabric of our legal system and the fundamental principles of the constitution have been trampled on in the last 8 years by our own justice department. For the first four years of the Bush presidency John Ashcroft was the attorney general of the Unites States. Before I go on let me state that I understand how things could get so out of hand. September 11th is one of the things in my young adult life that I will never forget. I remember seeing those horrifying images on the news. I remember having friends that live and work in New York. I remember not being able to call anyone’s cell phone in New York City. I remember the sense of fear and confusion that we all felt. That does not mean I gave the justice department a free pass. To spy on American citizens without cause it wrong. Even if I am scared it is still wrong. The patriot act has many merits. To spy on people suspected of a crime is perfectly acceptable to me. To treat everyone as a suspect is a very different matter. I am prepared to say that in the world we live in we will have take precautions. I have no problem with extra security at sporting events. I have no problem with taking off my shoes at an airport. I do have a problem with scrapping the entire premise of our legal system just because we are scared.

The whole idea of enemy combatants is another horrible idea by the justice department. To arbitrarily create a whole group of people with no rights is one of the dirtiest things our legal system has every done (and we have done a lot). If we are at war then these suspects are prisoners of war and they have the rights afforded to them by the Geneva Convention. This is an agreement that we signed in good faith. This is a set of rules that we as a people promised that we would uphold. This is the same set of standards that we have used to try, and to execute war criminals from other governments. If we are at war then the people we are holding captive deserve these rights. If we are not at war then these people are criminals and they should be treated as criminals. They should be processed the way all other criminals are processed. I have no problem with either of these distinctions but you can’t just create a whole class of people with no rights because you are scared. Detaining people indefinitely and torture are two things that are completely inconsistent with our democracy and this administration has admitted to both (it is only fair to point out that John Ashcroft is on the record for not supporting torture). These things are unacceptable no matter how dangerous this world is.

There are some that say we had to gather all this information to keep ourselves safe. I also reject this argument. If you have read any of the 911 commission report (and I happen to read the entire thing) you will find that we had plenty of information. The problem was the right information didn’t get to the right people. I would also say that we have lost valuable intelligence by alienating the Muslim American community. The people that can help us most with the war on terror are the first people we alienated by fear and discrimination. I would also argue that the intelligence gathered through torture is at best of questionable accuracy. There are many examples in history where citizens volunteered to give up some of there rights in order to feel safer. All off these decisions were met with disastrous consequences. This is a road that I WILL NOT GO DOWN UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. I didn’t believe in it on September 12, 2001 and I don’t believe in it now.

Dick Cheney (Vice President)

The things I have mentioned illustrate a several deeper problems that have gone on in the last eight years. The first problem is the idea that America is bigger then the rest of the world. The idea that America isn’t really apart of this world and therefore does not have to play by the rules that everyone else plays by. This idea has done more to harm America’s image then anything. This idea has been championed by our vice president. If 911 taught us anything it should have taught us that we are no longer this invincible island. The idea that we are over here and they are over there is no longer valid. In fact that idea is the idea that will ruin us in the post 911 world. Some would argue that the UN doesn’t work and that we often times will have to act on our own. I would respond by asking how is the UN suppose to work when the greatest most powerful country in the world won’t even acknowledge its importance. That makes for a very dangerous world. This is a world that our vice president and people like him have helped to create.

The second major problem with the course of action has to do with the idea of democracy. This administration has adopted as its foreign policy the idea that the world would be safer if we democratized the rest of the world. If we replace evil dictatorships with democracy the world would be a safer place. The problem comes in when we have to be the democracy that we are trying to sell to the rest of the world. If we are going to sell this brand of democracy then we have to be the model this democracy to the rest of the world. Why would anyone in the Middle East want to aspire to democracy when we torture our own citizens? Why should any third world government choose democracy when we abandon our fundamental principles as soon as things get a little rough? Why would they think that this government is better then the one they have? This administration still believes they are operating in a time when the world can not see our faults. A democracy is not just 3 pieces of paper that were written 200 years ago. Democracy is a living breathing thing and the only way it survives is if it is practiced.

The idea that evil is as simple as a flag or a group of people has doomed the foreign policy of the last eight years. The ability to differentiate from the people who mean to do us harm from the people that look like them is something that has happened on this watch. I do not know if this is reality or perception. In essence it doesn’t really matter. In a war of ideas, perception is almost as important as reality. This is another fact that this foreign policy does not take into account. This policy lacks the subtlety necessary to be effective in the world we live in and in eight years this administration failed to realize that. If its fundamental views are not upheld then it ceases to be a democracy.

Everyone freaked out in this election cycle because Obama sat on a board with William Ayres. The media also made a big deal out of Obama’s reported ties with a political action group called ACORN. How can we have a vice president who was the CEO of one of the biggest oil companies and be at war in one of the most oil rich parts of the world and there is no presumption of a conflict of interest.

I didn’t even mention that we had a “conservative” president and he spent more money then any “liberal” president has. I also didn’t mention the failed immigration policy, the failed health care policy, the failed social security policy, the very, very lame attempt at Middle East peace. I also didn’t mention the rolling back of almost every environmental act on the books. I also didn’t mention the idea that the top one percent of the country got richer while the middle class was almost destroyed. Did I mention hurricane Katrina and FEMA? And we won’t even mention names like Scooter Libby, Harriet Myers, or Alberto Gonzales.


Many people will argue that these men kept us safe. After September 11. 2001 there were no major attacks on American soil. I am glad that there has not been another September 11th. If they were right and I am wrong I will gladly be wrong so people can be safe. Some would also say that I am an idealistic fool with no sense of reality. Some would also say that I could not hold on to my idealism in this dangerous world. I would respond by saying I don’t give up that easily. I would argue we have no way of knowing how much safer we would be. We have no way of knowing what would have happened if we put the 140,000 troops that were in Iraq into Afghanistan. We put 50,000 troops where Osama Bin Laden was but we put 140,000 troops into a place where Al Qaeda wasn’t. We have no way of knowing what would have happened if we engaged the rest of the world to help us fight terrorism. What would have happened if we took the dissenting opinions of our allies seriously, treated them with the respect they deserve, and let them help us to solve a problem that affects everyone? What would have happen if instead of persecuting Muslim citizens, we employed them to help us gather intelligence? What would have happen if we greeted them as a valuable resource rather then with suspicion and prejudice? What would have happened if we didn’t have all that bad intelligence that came from torture to muddy the waters? What would have happened if we made a real effort to end extreme poverty and lessen the amount of desperation in the world thereby making it harder for extremists to recruit? What if we tried to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world with respect instead of fear and humiliation? What would have happened if instead of demonizing our enemy we employed the good people in the middle east to help us rather then thinking they all were evil? What would have happened if American and her citizens held to their democratic principles and made sure that the America is an ideal that the world should aspire to.

I don’t know what the next administration will bring. I do not know if this young inexperienced president is up to the challenge. I think the circumstances that we are in are very difficult. I think things may get worse before they get better. I don’t think Obama is going to deliverer on all the things that he promised us. I do know one thing. There is a whole lot of mess that has to be cleaned up. I am not saying that the Bush administration is the cause for all of it but I think in the last eight years this country has gotten further away from what it is suppose to be. It is suppose to be a country that treats all of its citizens equally and fairly. It is suppose to be a place where our diversity of opinions is a source of strength. We are supposed to be a country that realizes the unique place we have as a world power and the unique ability we have to lead this world good. I don’t know how good or how bad they will be but after the last 8 years I don’t ever wanna see these guys again. I will take my chances with a guy named Hussein.

People have told me that I should let history judge George W. Bush. I am a student of history. There is a statement that I debate with my “Bush Friends”. The statement is this. “I THINK GEORGE W BUSH IS THE WORST PRESIDENT IN AMERICAN HISTORY.” Worse then James Buchannan worse then Chester Author, Worse then Calvin Coolidge, worse then the dreaded Herbert Hoover. THE WORST. I invite anyone to look at what this president has done over the last 8 years and tell me why I am wrong.