Though it may be an unpopular sentiment to some, I really do find myself missing George W. Bush. There is no sarcasm in that statement; no hidden slander. I genuinely find a vacancy in the world where President Bush used to be, and for very specific reasons.
I voted for Bill Clinton twice.
In subequent years I came to realize the kind of creature he was, what he did - and I don't mean Lewinsky - and the kind of no-conscience reptiles he and his wife were. And are.
I remember experiencing rage at the election of George W. Bush in 2000.
Then 9/11 happened when I was working down the street from the JFK Federal Building in Boston. I realized with 20/20 horror-sight what it would have been like if Al Gore had been President. Gore, in the following years, has shown what terror he would have brought on this country with whatever his ideas of leadership would have been.
My mind changed and I began to see the foundation of what made this country and what motivated lunatic terrorists to want to snuff it out. And I became angry.
The next 8 years went by and now we are truly infected by a brand of vermin without conscience. And lately this has caused me to seriously reflect on what we are missing and the reasons I genuinely miss President George W. Bush.
Quite probably the most noticeable reason is that we were not bombarded daily with the Maoist inundation of images of the “Commander in Chief” as we are today. President Bush, once he won, stopped campaigning. His victories and, indeed, his presidency were not about some bombastic, megalomaniacal ego feeding frenzy.
He was our CEO.
Further, President Bush could be relied upon for steadiness of purpose. Whether you agreed with him or not, you knew there would be a landing on the tarmac without incident.
While I was a supporter of the Iraq War at the beginning, by 2006 I realized that something else had to be going on, and it wasn’t oil. If it were oil, we’d have seized it and avoided the rising gas prices. The expenditure of lives and money for the Iraq War are far, far out of proportion to the stated objectives. I don’t claim to know what was or the purpose is there. All I am certain of is that it is not oil and it is not security from terrorism.
That being said, we have been safe. Inarguably safe. This is not in small part due to the fact that President Bush surrounded himself with some of the most experienced and seasoned bureaucrats and military officers around. And, yes, I am an unabashed fan of Dick Cheney.
Dick Cheney just in sound bites makes Joe Biden look like the utter moron he is. Cheney is a man of class, decency and dignity. Yes, he probably knows a lot of things I would really like to know or would really not like to know. But my guess is these things are safe with him.
I can say that of no one in the current administration, least of all the President.
Understand, we have the first administration in history that is an administration of thugs. If you criticize them, you are insulted on a personal level. I never once remember this happening in the Bush White House. The Bush Administration handled criticism primarily by citing the individual’s right to free speech and to challenge aspects of authority.
Now, if you disagree with the Obama gang, you are a racist or a Nazi. How sane people can’t see this stark difference is beyond just mere learning disability.
No, I don’t give a damn about so-called “real Conservatives” who carped on Bush for not being the cardboard cutout of a party platform. These same people helped sink McCain and elect Obama. I grew up feeling lucky for what I had. I wish these idiotic Conservative ideologues would learn from that principle.
But, they’re all rich. They have no idea of being truly thankful.
And on a purely intuitive level, I miss President Bush because I don’t believe he had an evil bone in his body. He ran this country; he didn’t try to shape it into some Frankenstein’s monster socialist nightmare. A President of the United States should be a statesman, even a simple man, but surely not a child radical whose origins we are not allowed to challenge lest we be labeled crazy.
Yes, I miss George W. Bush, if only because I could come home at night and go to bed knowing that, for now, everything was going to be all right. He didn’t have a staff of hotshot narcissists with daddy issues. He ran a board of directors. They stayed in the background and actually worked.
Work.
And you better believe me: God, we need to get that back sometime or we’re all in deep crap.
Andrew T.Durham is a graduate of State University at Albany, with a degree in Psychology/Philosophy. In the late 80's to mid 90's he was instrumental in creating ground-breaking outreach/prevention programs, as well as being a highly successful public speaker. A former acupuncturist and clinician (primarily to inner city adolescents), he has also been a consultant to the Massachusetts State Department of Public Health and several non-profit organizations. He is an accomplished musician - proficient in 7 instruments - ,actor and author of 10 plays, 5 of which have been produced. He is currently a consultant for small non-profit agencies and lives in Rochester, NY
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