From Bottom to Top

Former President, George W. Bush (43), has been out of office long enough now for us to have a candid look at Mr. Obama, as well as evaluate the Iraq war, the unsubscribed debt, the resulting depression and the financial corruption allowed to fester on Wall Street.

Mr. Obama inherited one of the worst messes ever left a White House successor. Consider that Mr. Bush took our nation into war in Iraq as a matter of choice, under false pretenses. He left our troops in harm's way on two far-flung fields of battle. He embraced torture, supporting it as an interrogation tactic, which turned our principle of championing human dignity into becoming an international pariah and an outlaw, rogue nation. To support his war, he borrowed from foreign investors without planning how to pay for it, thereby raising our national debt out of sight, at the same time cutting taxes, which he gave to the upper echelons.

Mr. Bush remained unnecessarily detached, following the customary laizzez faire policies of his party, while the city of New Orleans sank deeper beneath the waters of Katrina. He stood at the helm when the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression took hold, all the while relinquishing governmental controls that made some effort at protecting the public (which he called big government interference).

He went from being the most popular president to becoming the most disappointing president, even squandering his once in a lifetime opportunity to unite the country, and the world, behind a shared peaceful agenda after Sept. 11.

Mr. Bush established a new record for secret government, avoiding the general public while favoring screened audiences that usually agreed with his favored military supporters (he operated a military state). He divided his own political party, leaving what seemed to be a permanent majority status a divided party operating on a principle of “No!“ He politicized both the federal government and the social issues on Main Street. He circumvented the traditional policymaking process by usurping more than the president's share of a shared government; he ignored expert advice and suppressed dissent. Finally, he left us a broken government badly in need of repair.

Whatever history concludes about the forty-third president, Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post could be right when suggesting that America gave Mr. Bush a backhanded compliment for his having created such a hunger for an anti-Bush and for a restoration of pre-Bush American values, that he paved the way for the election of the first African-American president.

Mr. Obama has angered so-called conservatives and special interests by pushing ahead with issues of health reform, in spite of the concerted conservative campaign to “spin” it as Obamania and socialism, portraying those of us who support him as "left field liberals."

Frankly, I find it in the best interest of thinking people everywhere to help Mr. Obama do all he can to heal the divisions that divide us, clean up the messes that Mr. Bush exacerbated, and bring our global family to the parlor for a peace summit.

Following the funeral of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Russia’s Mr. Putin offered televised remarks in which he commended Mr. Solzhenitsyn: "Through his works and his entire life he inoculated our society against tyranny in all its forms." Mr. Obama has a difficult path ahead of him and I will support him as an outstanding black American, a professed follower of the teachings of Jesus ... as long as he focuses on uniting working Americans in respectful relationships, healthy living, and cooperative efforts at building a better America from bottom to top.

From Warner’s World, I am
walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com