The Bush administration is marred with bad decisions. Bush fumbled the Iraq war, failed Hurricane Katrina victims, carried us into a recession and that’s just naming a few of his mistakes. As his time in office draws to an end his main focus seems not to be on struggling Americans, but on his own struggling approval ratings.
A low approval rate, currently hovering around 30 percent, poses a problem for a president obsessed with how history may portray him. Many will look back on this time, and see a secretive and incompetent president who made numerous mistakes in policy and speech.
Bush cannot allow this. After all, who will donate money to his presidential library if most people don’t like him? And he must have a library; all the other ex-presidents do!
In an attempt to fight low ratings some of the Bush staff and Karl Rove have launched the Bush legacy project, according to several news sources. What better way to gain the trust of the public than by spinning history.
He has yet to look America in the eye by taking responsibility for his mistakes. Instead of being honest, he says occupying the highest office during wartime, natural disasters and economic meltdowns has been a joyous time.
Bush said many strange things during a recent interview with ABC’s Charlie Gibson, but what struck me as most outrageous was his lack of a sense of responsibility. Despite advice to do so, he would not pull out of Iraq because he couldn’t let soldiers die in vain. We have to win so he won’t feel bad about sending our youth into a battle built on bad intelligence. There is something wrong here.
“You know, I’m the president during this period of time, but I think when the history of this period is written, people will realize a lot of the decisions that were made on Wall Street took place over a decade or so, before I arrived in president, during I arrived in president.”
Huh?
When someone is elected to arrive “in” president it’s their job to correct problems that could cause a financial meltdown.
Yet, he feels he has changed Washington for the better because he insisted on focusing on results. For example, “The budget process — let’s just pass money because the program sounds good.” Thanks for the results, Mr. Bush. Perhaps thinking things through would have achieved better results because I don’t think you meant your presidency to “result” in a recession and a war.
Bush told Gibson his greatest regret was not finding weapons of mass destruction as a result of inaccurate intelligence. What about a regret for the loss of American life?
Bush should have spent his entire time in office building a legacy — not just the last few months. It’s too late Mr. Bush; most of us are onto you. What about the legacy this war is leaving. In years to come, what will the Iraqi people think about being invaded under false pretenses?
Being concerned with one’s legacy is the last quality I want in someone holding the highest office of the land.
Serafina Costanza is a senior journalism major and the assistant opinions editor for the Daily Forty-Niner.
