George W. Bush – The Face of Failure?

The 43rd President of The United States of America, and son of the 41st President George H.W. Bush, is of course George Walker Bush. When you say that name today, most people cringe, save for the 30% or so hard core Republicans. What I and many others see in George W. Bush is the face of failure.

This is a President who had approval ratings shoot above 90% shortly after September 11th, 2001 and since then had them drop like a rock where they are currently hovering around 30%.

It’s obvious the post-9/11 approval rating was mostly due to the attacks themselves and Americans wanting to unite around their President, because his ratings prior to 9/11 weren’t that flattering.

Bush II won the 2000 election in a controversial victory. It appeared in exit polls that the state of Florida went to Gore, then to Bush. The closeness of the vote along with reports of voting fraud led to the Florida election recount. The outcome was tied up in courts until it reach the U.S. Supreme Court. On December 9, 2000 in the Bush v. Gore case, the Court reversed a Florida Supreme Court ruling ordering a third count, and stopped an ordered statewide hand recount based on the argument that the different standards that different counting procedures would have used violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court handed the Presidency to George W. Bush and eventually he was inaugurated as President on January 20, 2001 and his current term is scheduled to end on January 20, 2009.

After invading Afghanistan in the hunt for Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda Bush and many of the PNAC boys had other plans. Using September 11th as his reasoning, George W. Bush, along with Dick Cheney and the rest of the Bush Administration, unleashed their push for War with Iraq. Saying Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and fooling the American people into accepting another war. As it turns out, it was all based on LIES.

There were many players that played a key role in leading Bush to the White House and ultimately contributed to the failers of his presidency. An excellent piece of political non-fiction is The Bush Tragedy by Jacob Weisberg. Weisberg traces back through three generations of Bush’s family to ferret out his influences. Weisberg will put it all together with Bush’s hubris, the bad advice from his advisers including Karl Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney, along with the complacency of the American people.

Most Americans look at George W. Bush’s presidency as a comedy, a sketch on Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” or Stephen Colbert’s “The Colbert Report”, but reality shows it is a pure tragedy. When it comes to Presidents of The United States, history will show George W. Bush as the Face of Failure.