(This story was updated on January 16, 2009)
I'd love to have a chance someday to step into a time machine, and go about 50 years into the future. I would want to be transported into a school library, to check on the one thing that would be the most interesting to find out about: How will history look back at the eight years of the George W. Bush (U. S. President #43) administration?
Before the step into the future takes place, I remind myself of who could control the academics in America when I step into the future. Would the text books be written by historians that have been "educated" (indoctrinated would have been a better word) during this time? While knowing that there could be a liberal bias in the way history will be written, I'll still be hoping that a blog, such as this one written in this time of history, will be found by an inquisitive research historian that actually wants to know all sides of the issues.
My prayer will be that, for those of you that may still be alive in 50 years from now, historians will have made an honest attempt to state the true facts. Whether or not that will happen, only time will tell. But, the reason why it would be good for there to be an accurate and unbiased recounting of this time of history is because of the two important lessons that will hopefully be learned.
In my analysis of the last eight years, there is a significant and definitive moment when the attitude of many Conservative Americans realized that the President they re-elected was not going to be what we expected. There were two distinct periods of this administration where it is divided between high expectations being realized, and extreme disappointment (which is the normal response to have when putting our faith in a man instead of the Higher Power that we should be praising and worshipping).
For many of the Conservative Republicans that voted for a second Bush term, there shouldn't be any reason to feel guilty. The radical change in the direction of the Bush administration came a little after the 2nd term began, and it took most of us by total surprise. (There will be some that will tell us that we shouldn't have been surprised, but that is a subject for a later column about the coming New World Order.)
If we were to find nomenclatures for the two George W. Bush terms, I think I can provide a good starting point for your consideration. The first term would be named the "9/11 Term." At that time, my President was displaying the kind of "September 12th kind of people" we needed to be. Many of us were very proud to be Americans, and we proudly displayed that love of our country.
But then, following George W. Bush's win over John Kerry in November of 2004, there was a change. It was a drastic change, and it resulted in great shame for many people that had always supported the President. While many on the left could easily point to the Hurricane Katrina time for displaying a great lack of compassion on the President's part, I can go one better: This is why I would label the 2nd Bush term as the "Ramos and Compean Term".
Yes, while President Bush was running against John Kerry in the Fall of 2004, I had no doubts about who I would stand up for. I actually worked for his campaign. I had a dream come true when I was able to meet both the President and the First Lady, at the base of the steps from Air Force One. I had no qualms about having the great honor to ride in the motorcade from the Eastern Iowa Airport to the downtown venue where the President spoke to his strong supporters. It was a very happy and proud moment of my life. My belief at that time was that the President was a lot like me. I believed him to be a strong Christian with values that would be very easy for me to share with him.
It was in the second term that things changed. In the midst of a war in Iraq that was beginning to go horribly wrong, we had Hurricane Katrina. It came within W's first year of his second term. Though I wouldn't lay all of the blame at the President's feet, I can also say I wasn't horribly impressed with the performance by the new Department of Homeland Security. And it wasn't long after that, the various conspiracy theories started to come out of the woodwork: Everything from the evil Cheney planning 9/11, to the suspicions that the dikes protecting the 9th Ward in New Orleans were sabatoged by the government. I looked past those loonie ideas as schemes to discredit my heroic President. It wasn't those kinds of things that made me change my opinion to the point of being extremely disappointed.
It was pretty early in 2006 that I started seeing the writing on the wall regarding the President's stance on immigration. It was bad enough that we began to see a departure from Conservative fiscal policies that we would expect from a Republican-controlled Congress. But, when we started hearing the talk about giving amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants, Conservatives went ballistic. The boiling point was finally reached when two heroic Border Patrol Agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, were sentenced to prison time for their efforts to stop a drug runner.
It was all during these last two years of the George W. Bush administration that we learned what it meant to be a "globalist." Eight years ago, I never would have expected it. For me, it was all about George W. Bush being a "9/11" President. How sad it was for me to find out just how easily I could fall for such a pretender. For all the pride I had in the man in his first term, how sad it was to see that all evaporate with his 2nd term nurturing of the globalist agenda. No matter how well he will be remembered for his initial ability to bring Conservatives - for that matter, the country - together right after 9/11, it is all going to be forgotten in history based on what he did with his second term.
The Ramos and Compean case has become the theme of that distastrous 2nd term, as it illustrates the true legacy of the Bush 43 presidency. I hate to even have to write that. It is sad, because I saw a resurgence in the respect of the office for those first four years. What a wonderful change that was from the previous occupant in the Oval Room. It was a complete wardrobe makeover - from stained blue dresses to a man that always wore a suit and tie when working in the Oval Office. So sad, as all of that upward spiral in patriotism and seemingly high values and ethics all went down the tubes in the way that Ramos and Compean have been treated.
To the historians who will be writing the text books for our future generations that live decades from now: Please make it clear that we had a President that could have made a big difference in the course of this nation going in a positive direction, and he let it all slip away. We had a President that capitulated to a segment of society that felt that our national security would be better served by the global agenda. And please include the part how people found out that we could be fooled by politicians that were wolves in sheeps' clothing.
They say that the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same things and expecting different results. The textbooks of the future may never reflect the lessons that we have recently learned, should we continue to blindly follow the political system as it now stands. We must never throw the Bush 43 Legacy down the "memory hole," no matter how mixed-up it became. Quite to the contrary, especially now that we know what such a failure can lead to: An ObamaNation.
Related stories:
Farewell to George W. Bush - by Jane Chastain
Does Iraq make Bush a 'failed president'? - By Larry Elder
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