My View of the President

Our close has been set on our old house for 11 a.m. on Nov.30 and on the new house at 12 p.m. We (actually Michelle) have started packing up the stuff we don't use much. We're really looking forward to getting moved and settled.

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I wanted several times to comment on the Harriet Meiers Supreme Court nomination, but before I got around to it, she had withdrawn her hat from the ring. The President has now pegged someone else, a man, who appears to have the support of Bush's most conservative backers.

I voted for Bush twice. The first time in opposition to Al Gore, and the second time in opposition to John Kerry. I'm pretty sure I fit the Democrat's label of "right wing fanatic," though I don't see my life as fanatical.

Bush has had a difficult presidency. He was elected twice by very narrow margins, oversaw the nation's worst homeland attack since World War II, proceeded to begin a relatively unpopular war effort (still going on, but buried on the back page), and witnessed the greatest number of hurricanes to ever make land along our shoreline.

I am supportive of the President, but believe his presidency will be viewed as more failure than success. He has done little to distinguish himself. The nation is probably not better off in any way now than it was six years ago. My political sense is that the President of the United States has less power than the title would appear to give a person. Bush has exercised what power he has in ways controversial, and ultimately, in ways that have had little benefit to the nation.

Here in Iowa, the 2008 election has already begun. Men and women from both parties have visited Des Moines. Newt Gingrich appears to be in the race, and perhaps John Kerry will make another run. I suspect Hillary Clinton will seek the Dem nomination too.

I'm not wild about any of those people. Perhaps in this era of such political divide (based primarily on moral division), there is no hope of a uniting White House and politicians from across the spectrum coming together for the country's sake. Perhaps the electorate is so divided along the lines of abortion, sexual orientation, social welfare, and taxes that there is little left to unite the United States. Our government, now in place for 229 years, appears inefficient, cumbersome, and divided against itself. "One nation under God," still appears on our coins, but can not be recited in public schools, and it certainly is not truly reflective of our country.

Every mighty political structure of the past has fallen. Communist Russia, the dynasties of China, the monarchy of Europe, the emperor of Rome, Greece, Egypt. When will the same be said of the democracy of the United States of America?