More on Pygmies

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

I had a comment from "Anonymous" on my blog last night about the shortcomings of G.W. Bush and Sarah Palin. Anonymous is my favorite correspondent, and I want to take some space tonight to reply by to what he (or she) had to say. The comment was:

I do not think it is fair to blame all that is going on in government on George Bush. The stage for what is going on was set way before he came into the presidency.

Anonymous, I agree with your statement entirely. The government is an accumulation of sins and mistakes that goes back over two hundred and thirty years. There have also been some marvelous things to come out of our national government: the emancipation of the slaves and social security are two examples.

One of the biggest problems that I have with our current President is that he has been in snooze mode for most of the past eight years and left governing to his half-wit sycophants. But, on those few occasions when he has actually been the decider, he decided wrong - take for example the Oil War in Iraq and his two choices to sit on the Supreme Court.

In the eight years that George Bush has been in office, the foxes have been given complete and unfettered access to the hen house. Anything that could be deregulated has been (hence our current economic mess for which he does deserve much credit), and our national resources have been drilled, and mined, and cut down like there was no tomorrow. The thieves clamored to get it all carted off before this administration left town. The party, they realized, would one day come to an end.

Well, the party is ending. George Bush is not responsible for everything that has happened in government during the time he was in office. Lots of people had a hand in the carnage. But he did fritter away an amazing gift (or theft, depending on your point of view): the Presidency of the United States of America. How sad for him, and how sad for us. He came in with a robust economy, and promptly sent out rebates as a way of starving social programs. Then he used a national tragedy to start a war with a country that had no involvement with that tragedy. And now four thousand American troops are dead - and many other thousands have suffered wounds, homelessness, and broken families, thousands of Iraqi children are dead or maimed, and our national prestige is in the toilet - all so that George Bush could resolve some teen angst issues that he had with his dad. What a sad waste.

I did not say George Bush was responsible for all of the ills of government. That would have been an irresponsible statement. I said that he had been a national embarrassment - and that statement is easily defensible.