My attempt at a Political Blog: George W. Bush at my glance.

It is hard to argue against the notion that George W. Bush is the most polarizing president of our time for three reasons:

1. He’s a legacy- Believed to be a beneficiary of nepotism since his birth.

2. Conservatives pushed him through the ’00 Republican Primaries- After being beaten by 20 points by the softer and better liked John McCain in NH (an open primary which tends to elect more popular candidates among Democrats and independents), the Christian Coalition organized “get out the vote” campaigns in South Carolina and other more restrictive primaries in fear of McCain’s momentum.

3. He almost or may have lost the ’00 election- No one will ever know how many people voted for him in Florida and how many people voted for Al Gore. They got tired of recounting and eventually the recounts were damaging the democratic process.


Born to power and elected by questionable means make him “king-like” to his political opponents. Add that he has gone to a war on a premise different from the one he sold to the American people (a democracy was needed in the Middle East, whether there were WMD’s there or not) the power to nominate two justices to a Supreme Court which hasn’t overturned Roe v. Wade by 1 vote and he inspires criticism and praise alike like none other president before him.



With the exception of the path to the presidency, he is very much like Ronald Reagan. Reagan invaded Grenada (which is like Duke Basketball challenging Mike and Bill to a pickup basketball game) and was as conservative if not more than Bush. The glaring difference is this.



Bush doesn’t know how to be or doesn’t care to be perceived as having his heart in the right place. This summer he has allowed his opponents to politicize a soldier’s death and a natural disaster. 51% of Americans believed that Bush should have met with Cindy Sheehan for a second time (he had already met with her as he has with several fallen soldier’s families), only because she had this time organized a protest. He has allowed himself to be perceived as purposely withholding federal assistance because the left behind citizens of New Orleans were black, the premise of which is ludicrous.



I admit I didn’t see last night’s speech, but will read it and hopefully see clips of it, because I’m sure his speech delivery didn’t help any of these perceptions. What he needs to do is to appear compassionate, not condescending with a sympathetic frown not a befuddled smirk worthy of a freshman political science class not understanding a lecture.



Of course, he doesn’t need to do any of these things to get re-elected, because he already has.



So maybe we should move on to other questions….





If you give a stripper a dollar on ‘Amateur Night’ does that nullify her amateur status?