A Bush Review

I usually try to engage people in one on one conversations about politics as I find getting on a soapbox doesn't really accomplish the type of mutual respect for differing opinions that personal discourse can. However, with tomorrow being the end of the Bush administration, I have found the last week to highly introspective in terms of the politics and largely how to it has affected society and myself for my entire adult life.

Here is a 9 minute video by Keith Olbermann that reviews the Bush administration. My discussion follows below.

I understand that Keith Olbermann makes a living off of using his emotion and exaggeration to make money. However, his summary shows some facts that really are hard to deny.

1. We never captured Bin Laden.

Instead, we took the tragedy and shock of a nation, to sell a war in Iraq that had nothing to do with 9/11. Once Bush was outed for connecting the two in 2004, he still maintained that Al Qaeda was in Iraq. When confronted with the fact that they only were in Iraq because of his war, he stated "So what?" He vowed to take justice on those responsible for 9/11. He did not.

2. The size of government grew.

This is the most damning of the Bush presidency. Most of the people I know that voted for Bush believed that he would shrink the size of government post-Clinton. Who doesn't want less government in their life? It make sense to me. Instead, we have spent almost $600 billion on the war in Iraq, and have broken records for most any presidency has spent. So for those heralding Bush's tax cuts, you have to look at the fact he has increased spending. Therefore, our deficit is worse off, and we have mortgaged our future. Oh, and don't get me started on the $700 billion bailout.

3. The United States engaged in human rights violations.

I'm not one of those liberals that has idealistic views towards war. I understand that war is a violent, primal beast. That said, for an administration that consistently spouted that we are spreading democracy to Iraq, we apparently had some serious cognitive dissonance: Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and the lack of habeaus corpus. Bush has admitted in a few different ways that he knew what was going on. The world isn't stupid. They hear our words and see our actions. Nothing hurts worse than being the global hypocrite. I want my family, friends, and myself to be safe, but we didn't need to sacrifice our American values to do so.

4. Critical thinking was attacked as "Anti-American".

Using the war as a primer, people like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Karl Rove used arrogance to hide what really was going on: the war was not succeeding. I understand that a leader needs to make diffcult decisions. However, a leader must be able to listen to what people are telling them. It seemed that we lived in the Twilight Zone for 3 or 4 years. The sad part about this is that Bush's actions permiated out into the public. If you weren't with us, you were against us. As soon as you spoke out against the administration, you were fired.

5. Bush has taken no responsibility for the last 8 years.

In the last week, Bush has done interview after interview, and he simply doesn't get it: the reason why he wasn't popular was because he made mistake after mistake. He didn't listen to leading experts on foreign policy and economics.

Ending on a more comedic note:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

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Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
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By the way, this isn't a partisan issue to me. I wish parties didn't exist. I am neither Republican nor Democrat.