As many of you know, I am an 18 year old senior in high school. I had to write an argumentative paper for my AP English Language Class. It is the last major paper of the year, and the sheer level of apathy I had while writing it is staggering. It took my 9 hours to do, and it is only 5 pages long (I kept stopping to read, write, and comment on here... where I felt I would really learn the skills of argumentation).
So if you feel like hearing another criticism of the President based on a string of facts you almost definately know, click "There's more" below. I figured I worked a good long time on it, I may as well put it on here for disection and criticism.
P.S. - All my quotes have footnotes at the bottom, but the footnotes obviously aren't going in the diary, so take the quotes on good faith...
The last four years of American History have been nothing short of unprecedented. Beginning with the landmark 2000 Election whose outcome was determined not by the American People, but by the Supreme Court, the Bush Administration has presided over some of the worst times to fall upon America in recent memory. Yet despite the fact that he was given the seemingly impossible task of jump-starting the American Economy after the burst of the "dot com bubble," President Bush and his administration seem to rarely have the best interest of the American people in mind. Instead, they have spent their four years of power pursuing their own agenda, deceiving the American people, and catering to the interests of the wealthiest Americans.
In his closing remarks of the Presidential Debate in Boston, Mass on October 3rd, 2000, then Governor Bush said, "I don't want to try to put our troops in all places at all times. I don't want to be the world's policeman; I want to be the world's peacemaker by having a military of high morale and a military that's well-equipped." And he meant it; during his campaign, then Governor Bush strongly opposed any policy resembling what he called the "nation building" done by President William Jefferson Clinton. But after the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, everything changed. Bush's opinion on the use of the American Military changed from not wanting to be "the world's policeman" to one of pre-emption, believing that the best defense is a strong offense. In a speech given on October 7, 2001 while announcing the beginning of the War in Afghanistan in The Treaty Room, President Bush said, "In the face of today's new threat, the only way to pursue peace is to pursue those who threaten it." While the War in Afghanistan was justified on the grounds of National Security and combating the terrorists that were responsible for the horrific attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Mr. Bush's next step was not. On January 28th, 2003, President Bush used the State of the Union Address before a special join-session of the US Congress televised nationally to make his case to the American People for Military Action against Iraq. In his speech, he cited reports that "Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" and that "he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production" in order to develop a compelling case to go to war. It seemed to many anti-war activists and left-wing that the Bush Administration was trying to implicitly make the case to the American People that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11 and needed to be removed. It was contested, time and again, that George W. Bush was acting on a personal grudge against Hussein, who his father failed to remove from power during the Gulf War in the early 1990s. A poll taken by The Washington Post on February 6th, 2003 showed that 72% of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein "was personally involved in the September 11 terrorist attacks," seeming to confirm that whether it was intentional or not, President Bush's State of the Union Address effectively convinced the American Public that Saddam Hussein was involved in the devastating terrorist attacks. Yet at no point during the pre-War process did The White House offer any concrete proof to the American Public that there was any connection between Hussein and the al Qaeda attacks.
In recent months, several former members of the Administration have publicly criticized The White House for it's handling of the War on Terror and the War in Iraq, specifically citing the administration's motives and seemingly faulty intelligence. CBS News Reports that "[Richard Clarke, a former White House Terrorism Advisor] says that as early as the day after the attacks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was pushing for retaliatory strikes on Iraq, even though al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan." And even a year after the end of major combat operations in Iraq, no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) have been uncovered. All these factors have, in essence, caused a shift in public opinion from one of abnormally strong support for the President in the pre-war period, to one in which 49% of Americans disapprove of the way that President Bush is handling the War in Iraq and the largest news outlets in the Nation ask the President, "how [does he] answer [his] opponents who say that you took this nation to war on the basis of what have turned out to be a series of false premises" - or in more simpler terms, Mr. President, how do you answer the repeated criticisms that you have mislead the American people?
But the Bush Administration's history of pursuing its own agenda contrary to the best interests of the American People extends beyond foreign policy, and into economic policies as well. The Administration's 2003 Tax cut, which was intended to stimulate a slowing economy and propel the United States out of a recession, into an economic boom by giving 92 million taxpayers, on average, a tax cut of $1,083 in 2003, seemed on the surface to help average Americans by giving them back their hard earned money. But in fact, when the statistics are broken down even the slightest bit, it becomes readily apparent that President Bush's Economic Stimulus Package really is primarily a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans. "For the bottom 60 percent of Americans, the average tax cut was just $304. The median tax cut for all Americans was only $470. In contrast, the average tax cut for those making over $1 million a year was $112,925." When the true spread of the tax cut is illuminated, it becomes readily apparent that a disproportionate amount of the tax break goes to the wealthiest Americans who need extra income the least, and very little goes to least wealthy Americans, many of whom are either unable to find a job in the weak economy or have a job but are not lucky enough to earn a livable wage. Not only did the tax cut provide the lowest tax bracket with a disproportionately low break, but "under the President's budget, grants to state and local governments for all programs other than Medicaid would decline by 2.6 percent, after adjusting for inflation." To compensate, the state and local governments, who are required by their constitutions to maintain a balanced budget, must raise taxes to pay for the many now-unfunded mandates. What does this mean to the average American taxpayer? It means that they really aren't getting a tax cut; they are getting a tax shift. "Bush has shifted health costs to states and forced states to pay for unfunded mandates for homeland security, election reform, and No Child Left Behind. As a result, states and communities have had no choice but to raise taxes and cut services." As Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean often would say, "There was no middle-class tax cut." President Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans were just that, for the wealthiest Americans.
In 2000, then Governor George W. Bush campaigned across America on a theme of compassionate conservatism; for the last four years he has governed on a theme of right-wing extremism. Rather than focusing on the War on Terrorism, President Bush began discussion plans for a War with Iraq as early as September 12th, even though al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan, and consequently American Homeland Defense is still weak enough to allow ABC News to smuggle depleted uranium of the quality needed to develop a "dirty bomb" through US Customs and the leader of the al Qaeda network, Osama Bin Laden, is still at large. By pursuing his own agenda at the expense of America's interests, President Bush has succeeded only in rewarding the wealthiest Americans and presiding over the first period of job loss since the Great Depression.
The End.