W.R. Marshall -- Thank You Mr. Bush

THANK YOU MR. BUSH

by Dr. W.R. Marshall, Ph.D
January 12, 2008
NewsWithViews.com

Mr. Bush, we owe you our gratitude.

I never thought I�d say that. Sure you�ve been great fodder for columns and cartoons and sketch comedy, but every president has supplied pundits and writers with that, and while you may have given the people a few more laughs than the previous execs, you�ve given us so much more.

After seven years of the most incompetent, corrupt, arrogant, divisive�did I say incompetent�administration in the history of our nation, you�ve given the country the one thing you tried so hard to take away�hope.

You did your best to kill America, and I wasn�t alone in thinking you�d done it. You ignored the Congress, denied the Constitution, and right now you�re doing your Stalin impression by decreeing laws through signing statements. You�re the president who invades sovereign nations without provocation. You�re the president who approves torture. You�re the president who takes care of your friends first and the nation second�if at all. You�re the president who believes he�s a king, a messenger from god.

Things looked bleak for America.

Then something happened, and we have you to thank.

Barack Obama won the Iowa Caucus. A Black man in almost entirely white state won the hearts and minds of the people. And if that wasn�t surprise enough, a woman won the New Hampshire Primary.

People came out in record numbers to vote for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton�at one point they ran out of ballots at polling places in New Hampshire.

All because of you Mr. Bush. For seven years you�ve worked diligently to crush America. You lied and cheated and stole, you cried terror and sent young people to die in a war built on lies. You even tried to send more people to die in another war you wanted to lie us into.

It looked bad. I didn�t think anything would change and you would spend the next year running what was left of America into the ground. You�d make a few bucks for you and Cheney, while the cowards in the Congress let you make your deals and hoped you wouldn�t get mad at them if they objected to your renegade presidency.

Then a Black man and a woman made their presence known. The very people you could not care less about. The very people who could do nothing for you, were lifted by the rest of the people because of you.

After seven long years of your reign, Americans, rather than giving up, stood up. Their disgust with you and your cronyism and your insipid policies emboldened them, and they spit in your eye. They said, �No More.�

No more people like you.

For the first time in a long time people came out and voted for something, for someone�not against something or someone. (Not the way you got elected in both 2000 and 2004 when people held their nose and voted for you simply because they couldn�t pull the lever for the other guy�oh, right, you were the less popular candidate in 2000.)

Not this time, Mr. Bush. No one voted against another candidate, they voted for something. They listened, they weighed their options, they voted for something new. Something that isn�t you.

Every single vote cast, every single vote that carried Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and Mike Huckabee and even John McCain to victory, was a vote that said we�re done with you, Mr. Bush, we�re done with your arrogance and your ignorance�we�re taking our country back from people like you.

You brought together people who no one thought would ever sit down in the same room. White farmers and Black housewives, university professors and construction workers, senior citizens and first time teenagers�you, Mr. Bush brought them all together. They came together because of their contempt for you and their love for this country, the country you have systematically tried to destroy.

It�s a good thing you can�t run again�it saves you the embarrassment of being run out of town.

You still have time to do damage, to further ignore the will of the people in your flight from reason, but the end is in sight, and rather than the dark skies we once thought would loom over the country after you left it in ruins, things are looking pretty bright�in spite of you.

So, thank you, Mr. Bush.

You said something during your first run for president, and like everything else you�ve said, we all thought it was a lie, apparently it wasn�t�you finally did became a uniter.

WR Marshall is a syndicated columnist and novelist. His column, 'A Dull Ache'(tm) is read in over one hundred markets around the world. He also has a PhD, which he's still paying for-in more ways than one...