I am most happy to see Obama win because I know that my children and grandchildren will live in a progressive and more fair America since Obama will likely get to choose 4 or 5 new Supreme Court Justices. Since Obama/Biden are highly intelligent lawyers, they understand law and biases in the thinking of the interpretation of law, and their original intent by the lawmakers, and the integrity of The Constitution.
At Immanuel Presbyterian we had to stand in line for 2+ hours......I was rather shocked to hear so many MIDDLE AGED people say (in the North End!!) they had NEVER voted!! WTH??!!
This is exactly what the rich and powerful want....to so demoralize you so much that you just entertain and gorge yourself and check out of Democracy......
The fact that the old, the young, the black, the brown, the yellow, the green, the poor GOT OUT AND VOTED made the difference.
Why is the Supreme Court the most important issue ? Because, pass all the progressive laws you want in Congress and in state legislatures, but if it gets challenged, and gets in front of a conservative unintellectual Supreme Court, we will stay in The Dark Ages for ever!
Will McCain supporters line up behind Obama.....I think so because McCain isn't exactly like Bush....Mc's no Maverick, and there are fundamental differences. Bush is aligned with Neo-Cons, though his political life is really all about using America to make rich people richer.........and Mc is more old-school Republican. You betcha!
So.....let's recap the Bush Administration.................Lying, war-mongering, war profiteering, and unconstitutional behavior wasn't supported by "the left". We didn't support the neo-cons and Bush/Cheney because they are criminals and race-baters, not to mention, shredding the constitution. Appointing "black" people to high-profile window-dressing positions, only to use them to further a horrifically damaging foreign policy/disaster economics, is not a Win situation for "black" people. It damages "their" credibility since folks will see them used as pawns in an administration that has hurt America for decades to come.
A patriot supports the country and legal actions....a person who only wants their way, flaunting laws, and bankrupting the country while channeling the wealth of the GDP to the top 1% isn't acting in America's best interest, I mean, ALL of America's best interest...
Colin Powell succinctly defined history and the future of America when he repudiated in clear language the legacy of Bush/Cheney and the neo-cons that used his credibility to set this country and the world on a dangerous course for no more good reason than to set up a few friends in a multi-billion dollar money making scheme..(Blackwater, Halliburton, Mobil-Exxon, just to name a few who are happy to see the like of Bush/Cheney in power).....and uh,
How will history see this time of America.........
The truth is that the current administration is not the most disastrous in our history. George W. Bush's record on running up debt to burden our children is only the worst since Ronald Reagan. His record on government surveillance of citizens is only the worst since Richard Nixon. His record on foreign-military policy has gotten us into only our worst foreign mess since Lyndon Johnson sank us into Vietnam. His economic record on job creation is only the worst since Herbert Hoover. His record of tax favoritism for the rich is only the worst since Calvin Coolidge. His record of trampling on civil liberties is only the worst since Woodrow Wilson or perhaps John Adams.
Here's why Bush's presidency has been a disaster, although not quite the worst in our history. This president has:
* Taken, in the wake of the terrorist attacks three years ago, the greatest worldwide outpouring of goodwill the United States has enjoyed at least since World War II and squandered it by insisting on pursuing a foolish go-it-almost-alone invasion of Iraq, thereby transforming almost universal support for the United States into worldwide condemnation.
* Promoted the extraordinarily dangerous doctrine of preemptive war.
* Presided over the loss of more than a million American jobs, the worst record since Herbert Hoover.
* Misled the American public about weapons of mass destruction and alleged ties to Al-Qaida in Iraq and so led us into a war that has plainly and predictably made us less secure, caused a boom in the recruitment of terrorists, is killing American military personnel needlessly and is threatening to suck up all our available military forces and be a bottomless pit for the money of American taxpayers for years to come.
* Failed to follow through in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and Al-Qaida are regrouping, once more increasing the threat to our people.
* Insulted and ridiculed other nations and international organizations and then found it necessary to go, hat in hand, to those nations and organizations begging for their assistance.
* Inherited an annual federal budget surplus of $230 billion and transformed it into a $400-plus billion deficit in less than three years. This negative turnaround of nearly three-quarters of a trillion dollars is without precedent in our history.
* Perhaps worst of all, wrapped himself in the flag and used the horrors of 9/11 to divert the voters' attention from the disasters that his policies have produced.
It must be admitted, though, that in terms of what it sought to do, the Bush presidency has been successful. His presidency has been remarkably successful, as one historian declared, in its pursuit of disastrous policies. Viewed from this perspective, President Bush's own description in a Time interview (Sept. 6 issue) of his war in Iraq is the best assessment of his presidency as a whole: a catastrophic success. It has been all-too-successful in producing catastrophe.
That article was written 9-20-04...So there is a lot left out of the whole truth of the Bush/Cheney administration.....And I didn't even get to Katrina, homelessness, health care......
Back to Historians......
Historians are in a better position than others to make judgments about how a current president’s policies and actions compare with those of his predecessors. Those judgments are always subject to change in light of future developments. But that is no reason not to make them now.
The comments that many of the respondents included with their evaluations provide a clear sense of the reasons behind the overwhelming consensus that George W. Bush’s presidency is among the worst in American history.
“No individual president can compare to the second Bush,” wrote one. “Glib, contemptuous, ignorant, incurious, a dupe of anyone who humors his deluded belief in his heroic self, he has bankrupted the country with his disastrous war and his tax breaks for the rich, trampled on the Bill of Rights, appointed foxes in every henhouse, compounded the terrorist threat, turned a blind eye to torture and corruption and a looming ecological disaster, and squandered the rest of the world’s goodwill. In short, no other president’s faults have had so deleterious an effect on not only the country but the world at large.”
“With his unprovoked and disastrous war of aggression in Iraq and his monstrous deficits, Bush has set this country on a course that will take decades to correct,” said another historian. “When future historians look back to identify the moment at which the United States began to lose its position of world leadership, they will point—rightly—to the Bush presidency. Thanks to his policies, it is now easy to see America losing out to its competitors in any number of area: China is rapidly becoming the manufacturing powerhouse of the next century, India the high tech and services leader, and Europe the region with the best quality of life.”
One historian indicated that his reason for rating Bush as worst is that the current president combines traits of some of his failed predecessors: “the paranoia of Nixon, the ethics of Harding and the good sense of Herbert Hoover. . . . . God willing, this will go down as the nadir of American politics.” Another classified Bush as “an ideologue who got the nation into a totally unnecessary war, and has broken the Constitution more often than even Nixon. He is not a conservative, nor a Christian, just an immoral man . . . .” Still another remarked that Bush’s “denial of any personal responsibility can only be described as silly.”
“It would be difficult to identify a President who, facing major international and domestic crises, has failed in both as clearly as President Bush,” concluded one respondent. “His domestic policies,” another noted, “have had the cumulative effect of shoring up a semi-permanent aristocracy of capital that dwarfs the aristocracy of land against which the founding fathers rebelled; of encouraging a mindless retreat from science and rationalism; and of crippling the nation’s economic base.”
“George Bush has combined mediocrity with malevolent policies and has thus seriously damaged the welfare and standing of the United States,” wrote one of the historians, echoing the assessments of many of his professional colleagues. “Bush does only two things well,” said one of the most distinguished historians. “He knows how to make the very rich very much richer, and he has an amazing talent for f**king up everything else he even approaches. His administration has been the most reckless, dangerous, irresponsible, mendacious, arrogant, self-righteous, incompetent, and deeply corrupt one in all of American history.”
Four years ago I rated George W. Bush’s presidency as the second worst, a bit above that of James Buchanan. Now, however, like so many other professional historians, I see the administration of the second Bush as clearly the worst in our history. My reasons are similar to those cited by other historians: In the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the United States enjoyed enormous support around the world. President Bush squandered that goodwill by taking the country into an unnecessary war of choice and misleading the American people to gain support for that war. And he failed utterly to have a plan to deal with Iraq after the invasion. He further undermined the international reputation of the United States....
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