A Gentleman’s view.

I never voted for former President George Bush, and I honestly felt his brother assisted with helping the Republicans in stealing that election from Al Gore. I thought that I should mention this upfront. In spite of this, I am an American, and want all of us to succeed, that means any and all of our Presidents, whether Republican or a member of my Democratic Party. I really wanted Bush to be a success as our President, I never wanted him to fail as the most prominent representative of this great nation. What I now want is to crush the Republican Party as it exist today for allowing Bush to do what he did to this country after 9/11. The reputation ruined over the last seven years happened to all Americans, Republican and Democrat. Yet the Republican Party claimed patriotism through war, claimed to be the party of strength and protection and used these themes to paint the opposition as weak and ineffectual. They invested major efforts to paint the Democratic politicians running for various national offices as anti-American, unpatriotic and aiding and abetting the enemy.

This time has finally come to an end and we have a new administration in charge in Washington. Former President Bush led us to participate in two wars still ongoing, spied on our own citizens without legal authority, accused people of being enemy combatants, picked them up and shipped them around to countries willing to abuse them in our name of searching for more enemies to kill. We rounded up innocents and locked them up in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisons and held them without charges and are still holding them. Former Vice President Cheney believes all of these things were done to protect this nation from further attack and takes credit with pride for making those decisions. Now, I am not naive enough to believe all those locked up within those prisons are innocent, or not members of some radical Islamic group wishing our demise. The fact that several detainees have been released is more than enough evidence to say the possibility innocents were imprisoned and that is wrong. The new sheriff in town says from now on, we do this differently, we do this by rule of law, without stealing around like a thief in the night. We don’t torture, Guantanamo gets shut down, and put a hold on all military tribunals.

As I said earlier, I never wanted Bush to fail, but our American Republican patriots who have claimed superior moral authority in spite of all the noise against them are not wishing this new American President the same. Rush Limbaugh has gone live on air stating that he wants President Obama to fail, he wants the Republican party to defeat him at every turn including the issues created by their poor management of the institutions vital to this country’s survival. They left Obama with two wars that could be debated about their legitimacy, they left him with a financial mess created by their lack of oversight, they left him with a reputation to clean up around the world.

You would think that all Americans would have the best interest of all Americans doing well as that would suggest there is a chance for all of us to be successful in our pursuit of happiness. But, this Republican party has taken on an unpatriotic turn to the extreme degree, three weeks into an new administration, and the honeymoon is over as they publicly demand their party wreck havoc on the new president by not supporting his efforts to clean up the mess they left him. Not one vote for the bill to clean up the fiscal abyss we now find ourselves in, this from the patriotic rightwing moving in lockstep with the leadership responsible for getting us here. The patriots are in full effect now, the party wins as the country loses and they continue flittingly along their merry way without consideration of the people who sent them to Washington to look out for their interests. The Nationall Republican Trust PAC is working to defeat the stimulus package as though  they were immune to it’s failure. Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney, just two of the wonderful Republican patriots looking on with glee to be proven right at the expense of the rest of the United States of America.

© 2009, agentleman.