Thank You George Bush for Bringing Us Obama

Thank you George Bush for breaking a 40-year evil spell which has gripped our country since the assassinations and chaos of 1968.

Your singular ineptitude -- starting a war that didn't need to be fought, fighting it badly, the Katrina fiasco, and neglect of the financial crisis -- finally discredited a Republican, phony "conservative" culture, which has straightjacketed "the better angels of our nature" for four decades.

And you single-handedly paved the way for the election of a true Change candidate -- Obama -- who now has the epochal opportunity to put our country in harmony with the practices of the more advanced nations in the world.

In the fifties and sixties America clearly led the world in education, health care, economic prosperity, and moral authority. We were the heroes -- the chosen land, beloved and admired by all peoples throughout the world.

But in the last forty years our political agenda was hijacked by cynical campaigns -- focusing on God, Guns, Gays, Abortion, and the Flag -- craftily exploited by Republicans who callously squandered the best part of American values for electoral gains.

Today, our health care stinks -- we pay twice and much and get worse results than any advance country in the world. Our education system ranks behind most other advance nations. Our standard of living is surpassed by many countries. We owe trillions to the Chinese, and we are hated and reviled throughout the world.

How did this nightmare happen?

Easy. The Republicans discovered that if they scared the bejesus out of voters, they could win elections. This was their credo. They contemptuously capitalized on the anger and bitterness of small town, backwater America, which has found itself abandoned by the rapid economic and social transformation.

By exploiting these economic, cultural and social anxieties, Republicans were able to forge deep schisms on the phony issues of gun control, tax increases, abortion, and homosexuality -- peripheral concerns which turned us against each other and transformed US culture into a mean and regressive society, domestically, and an aggressive bullying one, internationally.

Democrats did not lose elections because they were out of step with white working class voters on economic or foreign policy issues. They lost because voters became confused by the smoke and mirrors of a counterfeit faith-fear based agenda. The working and middle class voted against their own economic well-being.

This nasty run could have continued for decades to come. Even in 2008 the Republicans came frighteningly close to winning -- except for the financial crisis -- by painting Obama as an outsider Marxist not in touch with America's values.

Fortunately, the damage that W did was not easy to fix or forget and the result is that now Obama has been handed a once in a lifetime chance to turn Crisis into Opportunity. "Never let a Crisis go to waste" said Rahm Emanuel the other day.

With solid electoral majorities in both the House and Senate, Obama can aggressively move to implement long overdue reforms that can finally make our Government -- For the people, By the people and of the people.

The long frozen winter may finally be ending.

Obama can usher in a golden age of justice, universal health care, a wiser more constrained foreign policy, a supportive environmental movement, greater racial reconciliation, real education reform, and a narrowing of the income gap.

These are all in tune the core values of American culture. Obama can bring us closer to being one people -- free from the hatred that has been exploited by politicians for decades.

It will not be easy, but none of this would have been possible but for George Bush's blunders. If McCain had been elected president in 2000, he might have read the memo about Bin Ladin striking the US, we probably wouldn't have invaded Iraq, and McCain would have done a better job in Afghanistan. The flames of anti-immigration hatred would have been calmed. Torture would not have been tolerated, and a campaign reform bill would have passed.

Without 8 years of a stumbling George Bush, another regressive "moderate" Republican, like Mitt Romney, might have beaten Obama in 2008; once again strangling the Change -- reforms -- that have been stalled since the Kennedy-Johnson administrations of the 1960's.

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Comments

[dk870]

Anyone who thinks that the economic crisis we are in is because of the Bush administration needs to go to the following website posted by the new york times dated in September of 1999. It was in fact under the Clinton administration that mortgage lenders like Fannie Mae were pressured to lower their requirements and give loans to people who could not afford them. It is not entirely former President Bush's fault. When you default on your mortgage, the ones who take the fall are the lenders. Hopefully when Fannie got the bailout they raised their standards to keep this from happening again.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

[lucylou]

Hallelujah.

[hortonhearsawho2]

I knew it, bush gave to the campaign, I just knew it...

[ibsteve2u]

"They contemptuously capitalized on the anger and bitterness of small town, backwater America, which has found itself abandoned by the rapid economic and social transformation."

lollll....too many people among the Democrats make the mistake of assuming that intelligence stops at the city line and the only thing that exists beyond that artificial boundary is anger and bitterness.

What made the "small town" types vulnerable to the Republican lies is the fact that they are not exposed to the hypocrisy and the "dirty underbelly" you see almost daily in "the big city"; in short, they still believed that a President would not lie and would not permit his Administration to lie.

I've lived in both societies - for they are different societies - and have seen the difference first-hand. Yes, there are still many small towns where people don't lock their doors at night, leave their keys in their ignition whenever they are home, and unfailingly help out their neighbors when their neighbors face hardship.

Such trust made them uniquely vulnerable to "the big lie" the Republicans have specialized in these last 28 years.

But those times are changing...the Republicans have made the mistake of lying too often - and getting caught.

[helpontheway]

great post, I too have lived in both "societies" and I wholeheartedly agree with what you've so thoughtfully spelled out here about Republicans, small towns, trust, lies, and getting caught. Interestingly, last season (I think) of Bill Maher's show John Mellencamp was a guest and he put forth a similar theory to yours about why working-class small-town America keeps voting for a Republican party that does not work for them or represent them in anything but pandering and Bill shot him down as naive but I saw the truth in it then and I see it now in your post. The truth will set us all free.

[InjunTrouble]

Absolutely true.

Without the eight years of GW, Americans would never realize how dangerous, mean-spirited as well as incompetent conservative Republicans are.

Americans have been voting for Republicans for so long because they always wanted somebody they could have a beer with. We ended getting undereducated, ill-informed men who preached God and family values to the working class while giving tax cuts to the rich.

With GW we finally had someone who did all that, but at the same time screwed the entire country in almost every way he could.

Were it not for Dubya, someone like McCain or Mitt Romney would be elected over Biden or Hillary Clinton anyday. Obama would not have even won the nomination (there would be no Iraq speech to get him started).

[saudicandidate]

Mr. Fleetwood; normally when i read a column, i agree with some things and disagree with others. well i have finally found a column that is completely looney tunes. nearly everything written in it is wrong or distorted.

in the last 48 years we have had one great president, his name was Reagan. Ronald Reagan lines up just behind Washington and Lincoln as one of only three truly great presidents. he single-handedly brought down the soviet union, while turning our economy around from out-of-control inflation to solid prosperity. He saved our country from the impending collapse due to the ineptitude of the previous two presidents.

during this same 48 year period, we also had the worst of our 43 presidents, the grossly inept and disturbed jimmy carter who reminds me a lot of barack obama. America is not only the greatest nation in the history of the world, it is by far the most advanced in all aspects that you deride us about. why is that canadians and europeans come to America for advanced healthcare, while their forms of socialized medicine have completly failed..

with obama there will no justice, no freedom, and the we are likely to see the end of the American way. his universal healthcare will collapse; the obama desire to share the weath, which is another word for communism, will lead to many more millions of Americans becoming dependent on the government. We just may see the end of America by 2012.

[channelerchik]

dude are you serious? Reagan great? He wasn't even coherent his second term due to Alzheimer's. Remember Nancy whispering him answers to basic questions? And he's the guy who started the abysmal "trickle down economics" that was the beginning of the mess the country's economics are in now.

Oh, you're a rethug. Never mind. You'll never get it. Why don't you go play tiddleywinks for a few years while the rest of the country works to get things back on track.

[CaliforniaMike]

When Ronald Reagan took office, the national debt was $1 trillion. Thanks to him, to Bush and Bush Junior, it's nearly $11 trillion now. Reagan had little or nothing to do with the end of the Cold War. Russia was imploding under the failures of its own system.

All Reagan did was make people distrust the government. As for our health care, we pay more and get less than any other industrialized nation.

I know you drank the Kool Aid, but please, keep your fantasies to yourself.

And rating Reagan ahead of Roosevelt -- Franklin or Teddy -- is just looney.

[bjammin]

Repubs are absolutely obsessed with Carter. Let it go. You can't use him as an excuse forever.

The "End of America by 2012?" Wow. Who's inept and disturbed now?

[clamperken]

What world are you living in? Reagan great???? WTF are you ranting about? Reagan was an actor who talked a good story but you give him too much credit for advancing the American way of life. Yes it's true that the republicans have made life better for the richest 1% of the populas. Too bad they had to disregard the other 99% to accomblish it. Bush / Cheney & Co. nearly destroyed our country and they will not be forgiven or rewarded for thier incompetence. Rather, they will be held to the carpet by history and hopefully a court of law. Trying to blame the state of the union on a President from 30-40 years ago is the most rediculous argument I've ever heard. Save your rantings for Fox & Co. I'm sure you'll be well recieved by those witless fools.

[cminca]

When Reagan took office we were the world's banker, we imported raw materials and we exported manufactured goods. As Bush leaves office, we borrow from China, we export raw materials, and import manufactured goods (both signs of a banana republic).

The current economic meltdown is the bookend of failed Reaganomics. THAT will lead to millions more Americans becoming dependant on the government.

Reagan HAPPENED TO BE IN OFFICE when the Soviet Union collapsed--that he "singlehandedly brought (it) down" is propaganda. If anything, the Russian war in Afganastan propelled the economic meltdown as much as any arms race with America. ( And trust me--OBL understand the toll the Afgan war had on Russia. George Bush never figured it out.)

He gave us the fallacy of the "welfare queen", that "government is the problem" and he began process of privatizing the military. And let's not forget closing VA hospitals--those guys with PTSD were only malignerers--right?

"With Obama there will be no justice"--try telling that to those held, unconstitutionally, in Gitmo and elsewhere. "No freedom"--let's talk illegal wiretapping of Americans and the Patriot Act (personally, I'd rather the government NOT inquire into the books I check out of the library.)

This article is on the money. The republicans have been selling fear to middle america for decades. Reagan, the B-actor, staged managed a brilliant performance, nothing more.

[Venicedread]

Thank you, former, President Bush!
A friend of a friend had talked to me about this scenario when John Kerry was running in 2004.
He said that he hoped Bush would win so that people would be forced to wake up and make real change.
I thought he was nuts and told him as much.
He was spot on.
I just hope that sacrificing the last four years hasn't cost us too much to be able to recover.

[MPeter]

Thanks Blake. You are bang-on. Change has come to America. Welcome Prez Obama. We love you.