This is not a diary about how bad George Bush is as much as how disheartening his dishonesty and thus his lost opportunities have created so much destruction and so much disappointment.
Gone are the days of unity and a sense of purpose. Gone are the days of comity and understanding. Gone are the days of real compassion and real responsibility. Gone are the days that unless the subject was sex you could pretty much believe what the president was saying. I'm not going to claim that Iraq was the biggest disappointment of this presidency but a symptom of a much greater disappointment--a complete and utter lack of honesty and understanding with the American people
More on the flip.
I will never forget seeing the president standing in the rubble of the World Trade Center with his bull horn telling rescuers (and ultimately the world) that "the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon." Like a lot of people, even very partisan Democrats like myself who knew what we were getting with Bush but still held out hope, this statement was a rallying cry for Americans who had been wounded so badly by this blow.
It goes without saying that our hope could not bear fruit. Like many other Americans who watched him standing in the rubble with the tired looking but hopeful old firefighter--chill bumps coursed down my spine. Not the chill bumps you get when something bad happens or your sick, these were the chills you get on those very rare occasions when you are proud to be a part of something much bigger and greater than yourself.
Those are the chill bumps I got when Bush spoke to the firefighters at ground zero; a physiological response that my body was desperately trying to make clear to me that THIS is an important time of your life wake up and take notice you fool! What makes the disappointment in this administration so sharp and so tender a wound is not the fact that we understood what the consequences would be in 2000 but that this president, the entire Republican Party refused to prove us wrong.
Maybe they didn't refuse to do it so much as they were incapable of doing it because of greed and incompetence. Either way the results are clear and the devastation is depressing. From what little of the president's recent unprecedented speech with specifics I watched I gathered one important point--stay the course.
What do the victims of 9/11 and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars say about that. I know what one mother of a killed soldier would say but what do the rest say? I hope they don't still say, "I trust this president's leadership" because that might make me emotional (which I get much more easily since the birth of our first child).
As Karl Rove is soon to be prosecuted (cross your fingers), Tom Delay loses his seat in Texas, more and more people realize they bought into a lie when voting Republican, the Gulf is hopefully rebuilt, the deficit continues to barrel down the tracks toward my newborn's future as a taxpayer, the Supreme Court continues it's decline, the poor continues to be ignored, the environment continues to be raped, the president and the Republican Party can say in 2006, "at least you still have your health."
For those that are sick they might say...."at least you got that $300 tax cut from a couple years back, right?"
Let us bow our heads and thank the Republican Party for all of the prosperity and hope they have given us during these times of need. Nah, let's let our Democratic leaders know that the time for cooler heads is over. I want the course of this country changed and I want you to help me fight for it!
There is still room for a positive agenda because that's what we want and need but it's important that we let the American people know that if the Republican Party is not going to accept responsibility for the direction they've taken this country WE WILL MAKE THEM!
Those chill bumps of pride for being a part of something so tragic yet uniting in purpose have been replaced with the chill bumps of being out in the cold all alone. It's not Michael Moore's fault, John Kerry's, or MoveOn.org, it's this president's fault and his party's fault that America no longer trusts this president's word or his heart.
"The people who have lied to us and hurt America for generations to come will hear all of us soon."