Cross posted at
Keeping Reality In Sight
"You want to see sin of the wickedest kind?
Here it is.
You want to see virtue left behind?
Here it is.
Sodom was vice and vice-a-versa
You want to see where the Vice is worser
Here it is, I mean, here it is."
I was flipping through my music this morning, trying to drown out Lazytown on the TV behind me, and I came across this song. The Gospel of No Name City is from Paint Your Wagon. This was probably my dad's favorite movie of all time and usually when I hear it I think of him. But not this morning.
This morning I heard the theme song from the White House. I could almost picture in my head Bush, Cheney, Condi, and Rove singing this song (made me laugh anyway). Can't you see them dancing a jig around the oval office?
Anyway, it seemed to me that the in the last 30 years, the white house and the offices of President and Vice President have changed in the view of the average American. When you think about Presidents from our past like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, FDR, Teddy Roosevelt, and even JFK, you feel a certain amount of respect both for these people and the office itself. I realize these are the great ones but just think back to any them. They were all truly great individuals and they all brought honor to the office and the country. These were men that you could respect and trust. So just think back to the Presidents of the last 30 years: Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton. No one seems to respect the White House anymore. What was so different about these administrations that made the people of America look differently at the WH? It seems to me like this change began with Watergate and the rest of them just helped it along. But hey, Bush II is doing his fair share!
There was an article on Yahoo! about GWB being the Worst President Ever. The article talked mostly about Buchanan, who previously had the undisputed title but it did list the reasons that many are describing Bush as the new Worst President Ever.
- He has taken the country into an unwinnable war and alienated friend and foe alike in the process;
- He is bankrupting the country with a combination of aggressive military spending and reduced taxation of the rich;
- He has deliberately and dangerously attacked separation of church and state;
- He has repeatedly "misled," to use a kind word, the American people on affairs domestic and foreign;
- He has proved to be incompetent in affairs domestic (New Orleans) and foreign (Iraq and the battle against al-Qaida);
- He has sacrificed American employment (including the toleration of pension and benefit elimination) to increase overall productivity;
- He is ignorantly hostile to science and technological progress;
- He has tolerated or ignored one of the republic's oldest problems, corporate cheating in supplying the military in wartime.
Bush seems to have taken all the wrong lessons from the presidents of the last 30 years. Did he say when he was running against Gore that he was going to bring integrity back to the white house?
Remember when you were a kid and you wanted to grow up to be president? Who did you want to be like? Why did you want to be like them? If you had to pick now, who would you pick? What about the worst president?