Bush bashing

I promise, this little blog o' mine won't be a political blog forever. It just seems like the only way to avoid political talk these days is to stay locked in your home with no tv, no radio, no internet, and you better not look outside or else you'll see 10,000 political signs around the neighborhood. 

Trust me, there's a lot of other things going on in the space between my ears, and I'm sure I'll get to it eventually, but for right now....you're getting more politics. 

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I'm going to start here with what seems like a politically unpopular opinion - I don't think Bush is the reason for all of our problems right now. That's not to say I think he's guilt free or hasn't made his fair share of mistakes. Hell, I think it is entirely possible that he'll go down as one of the 5-10 worst Presidents we've had. But I don't think it's all his fault. Those that do place the blame all on him, I think, are giving the man WAAAAAAY too much credit. He's not smart enough to cause all of our problems. He's had plenty of help, and I'm not just talking about the typical liberal "blame gang" of Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice. Believe it or not, the blame goes further than that. Brace yourselves....even some (*gasp*) LIBERALS are to blame. 

I'm too lazy right now to look it up, but one of my favorite lines from "The West Wing" was something like "The Republicans aren't the enemy, they're the opposition. Congress is the enemy." Truer words have never been said. Thanks to the wonderful thing called The Constitution, the power of the President is limited. Granted, that power has expanded quite a bit since 1787, but the general idea is the same - the President can't single handily run (or ruin) the country. He had plenty of help. 

We currently have a Democratic Congress, led by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. And if you look, the approval rating for Congress is just as low, if not lower, than Bush's approval rating over the past year or so. And if you'll notice, that's about the same time period where everyone started running for re-election. We hear it every 4 years it seems, but "This is the most important election EVER!!!!!!!11!!!ONE!!!ONE!!!!!" And to some extents, that is true - a brand-new administration is going to take over. The promise of hope and chance is in the air. So what's the worst thing that a Congressman can do right now? Rock the boat, and risk not being in Washington to be a part of the change. So, Congress has taken an unofficial leave of absence for the past 12 months, it seems, to allow everyone to shore up their base. That means ruffling as few feathers as possible and changing as little as possible. McCain realized the problems with sub-prime loans awhile ago, but no one wanted to deal with it, hoping it would stay a dormant problem until after November. 

Oops. 

So now, here we are discussing a $700 BILLION bail-out for major investment organizations. And it's all Bush's fault, right? Not so much. Check out this post a guy I know from college wrote on the whole mess: http://rudeamerican.blogspot.com/2008/09/to-own-home-in-state-of-nature.html. I'll wait for you to read it....

So wait a second....that sounds like it was Clinton who started the whole mess? He set the parameters for this collapse. 

Bush didn't encourage banks to take these Adjusted Rate Mortgages. He didn't force the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates month after month, causing these mortgages to go higher and higher each month. Bush never forced anyone to sign one of these mortgages, gun to head and pen to paper. 

There are many cogs in the machine of the Federal Government, and one man cannot save or collapse and entire system like this. 

Look at the similarities between the recent gas price problem, and these mortgages. Oil wasn't skyrocketing in cost because of a sudden fear of the supply, or the capacity to produce more gasoline. Prices were going through the roof LONG before hurricane season started, so it wasn't just that fear alone. 

It was oil speculators artificially increasing the cost of a barrel of oil. Investors buying thousands of barrels of oil at $120, assuming it would go up to $140. 

Sounds a lot like everyone hoping to flip homes in America and make a quick $20,000-50,000 simply by signing their name to a piece of paper. Who cares what the mortgage rate is? I'm only going to have this house for 2-3 months, right?

But when the bubble burst, too many people were stuck holding a house they couldn't afford and didn't want. And those that did get the house they wanted had to pay the additional $20,000-50,000 just because the other guy got there first and wanted to get a piece of the pie. It was individual greed that pushed this problem to the breaking point. The "haves" trying to milk more out of the "have nots". (Oh, and there are quite a few "haves" who are Democrat as well....not all rich people are Republicans)

Bush didn't buy all the houses in America and force people to pay inflated prices for them, just as he didn't buy all the oil and make the prices go up. 

But, but, but....he didn't do anything to stop it either!!!! 

What can he do, really? Yeah, he could try to release an Executive Order suspending the gas tax for a few months, or ordering that interest rates freeze at a certain level, but all of those moves are a gross overreach of Executive power. He'd be raked over the coals for doing it, just as much as he has been for not doing anything. 

The last thing I'd say is that Bush has done a great job and really helped advance and promote the American way of life. Things aren't better than they were 8 years ago. But he's also had a bad hand dealt to him, and tried to do the best with what he could. It's hard to make lemonade when you've been given rotten pineapples. 

So when you're going to that polling booth in November, just remember that both parties were given the power to fix things, and none of them used that power to help America.