Farewell President Bush – Can’t Say I’ll Miss You
President Bush will return to Texas next week after handing the keys to the White House over to Barack Obama. I have been supportive of George Bush for the last eight years, but I am not sorry to see him go.
Conservative philosophy is in shambles, not because there is a problem with it, but because it’s “brand” has been unjustly tarnished by Bush and the Congressional Republican’s utter incompetence. For eight years, Democrat Lite has set us on a course for failure, and labeled Conservative. All pain, no gain.
I’ll spot President Bush his Supreme Court justice appointments, and preventing further deaths of Americans at the hands of terrorists here at home is no small feat. I think in the long term events in Iraq and Afghanistan will speak well of his legacy and reflect well on America.
Nevertheless, over and over President Bush was kinder to his enemies than he was to his friends. Immigration amnesty, big government spending, pork projects galore signed into law, Bush was decidedly un-conservative fiscally with the exception of taxes. President Bush ran up our nation’s charge card like a freshman on his first weekend at college.
Medicare Part D may well end the business of independent pharmacies as the fools who run myriad dysfunctional agencies begin shackling pharmacists with regulations and tight reimbursements. Soon only huge mail-order houses will be providing critical health care services as they will be the only ones with the clout to fulfill these needs profitably. Billions upon billions of tax dollars are filling up farm coffers even as food costs go up hurting consumers least able to cope. Freddie and Fannie are Democrat failures through and through, but Bush refused to stand them up for accounting. When the Government is finally bankrupt and we get into a real-live economic mess, we can look at Mr. Compassionate Conservative as a usual suspect.
Let me dwell on this for a nonce, as well. I voted against President Bush in the primaries because he was Democrat Lite, his “Compassionate Conservative” drivel a tacit insult to we who are plain conservative. Studies demonstrate that we of conservative bent are generous and compassionate with our time and money, we are just not keen on being generous and compassionate with other people’s money, especially money confiscated under pain of law.
I believe Bush is a kind man, not a man with the stomach for ideological fights. Fair enough, but ideological fights are what a culture needs to set its future course. Economic freedom and prosperity are measurably imperiled now that the outgoing President has ceded so much territory to the socialists. Worse, he offered very little against which to clash the fully-blown socialist now taking over the management of our beloved nation. These failures put people like me who want economic liberty in a deep defensive hole.
President Bush single-handedly and quite blithely, took a wrecking bar to the Republican party as a conservative, fiscally responsible agent in this nation. I know his heart was in the right place, but its our asses in a sling.
