I was born in 1970. I was 10 in 1980. Since I was 10, there has been Reagan, Bush-41, Clinton, and Bush-43. Despite this, I also distinctly remember Nixon, Ford, and Carter, as well.
Douglas Adams of "The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series of books wrote this about the job of president:
The job of the president is not to wield power, instead, it is to distract attention away from it.
Our nation swings on a pendulum between the two parties. We get sick of one and clamor to the other.
The Bush-43 administration had help winning the 2000 election by unconstitutional means. The Supreme Court had no business ruling on it, according to the Constitution, the Congress should have taken it up. Bush may still have won, but deviating from legal procedure indicates something was not legitimate about the process. Also, the Secretary of State for Florida was chair of that state's Bush election committee, a clear conflict of interests (similarly, when the 2004 elections came down to a "swing state," the Secretary-of-State for Ohio was chair of that State's Bush re-election committee.
Bush-43 did not do enough to prevent 9/11 despite credible intelligence from multiple sources that an attack was imminent. It does not matter who came before him, it matters that it was permitted to occur 9 months into his watch.
He has used the 9/11 attacks to spend more money than we have, running up our national debt with countries like China (albeing, he did have help from a mostly complacent Congress). Despite all the security measures that have been put into place since 9/11, we are no safer than we were before the attacks. The fact that we have had no more attacks since then is a testament not to the foresight and vigilence of the Bush Administration, but to the complex difficulties in pulling another such attack off.
His administration has justified the weakening of our civil liberties and has permitted abuses of executive power under the guise of "national security." We have been cowed into sacrificing our freedoms for the illusion of security, and we shall get exactly what we deserve as a result.
Our invasion of the soveriegn nation of Iraq on false pretenses has cost the lives of over 3,000 of our servicemen and women, and countless thousands of lives of Iraqis. We sent our military to invade Iraq with inadequate preparation, equipment, and the necessary skills to sustain a long-term occupation. It is a failure of the Bush leadership to learn anything from Vietnam (because none of the key members of the administration ever served there).
This administration also created more bureaucratic layers to government, both increasing taxpayer costs to maintain, and creating the communications SNAFU that led to the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
The Bush-43 administration
