2008 Woodie Awards
A tired message from a tired president
Joe Caporoso
Issue date: 1/31/08 Section: Op/Ed
President Bush's final State of the Union Address was far from an exclamation point on his two terms served as President. The ideas that once sounded ambitious now sound like a tired recording, as most of the nation saw the speech as a brief distraction from the closely contested Democratic and Republican primaries. A large portion of the coverage was dedicated to monitoring the interactions between Senators Obama and Clinton, along with post-speech interviews with Governor Romney and Senator McCain. Unlike previous Presidents, Bush doesn't have a successor waiting in the wings as Vice President or anywhere in the Republican Party. The current batch of Republican candidates could hardly stand to mention his name on the campaign trail, as they attempt to distance themselves from the highly unpopular President.
Currently, the President sits with a staggeringly low approval rating. He has presided over a highly partisan eight years, which has seen the divide between Republicans and Democrats grow further apart. An unstable economy that is staring a recession in the face and the continued presence of an unpopular war threaten the President's chances of having a desirable legacy. When history looks back at the eight years of George W. Bush's Presidency, it may prove to be harsh on him.
Bush entered the Presidency in a controversial manner by squeaking out a victory in 2000, largely thanks to the Republicans in the Florida Supreme Court. After a quiet start to his term, September 11th occurred, awakening the neo-conservative foreign policy giants surrounding him. Everybody knows the rest: the faulty intelligence, the lack of a connection between Sadam Hussein and Al-Queda, the lack of WMD's in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, etc.
The President did manage to prevail in a closely contested race against John Kerry in 2004. Yet, Bush has fallen short on many of his long term goals over the past few years. In terms of domestic issues, he has failed to remake Social Security and productively advance a solution towards illegal immigration. The economy has been unstable, as the lower middle class received no aid from the President's policies. In foreign affairs, the war has become increasingly unpopular as people are beginning to recognize the difficulty of putting our troops in the middle of a civil war. Iran and North Korea still remain nuclear threats. President Bush's major ally in the war on terror, Pakistan, couldn't be further from being a stable nation.
Perhaps it is unfair to blame all these problems on the President. Everybody knew he was not a foreign policy expert when he ran in 2000, as he portrayed himself as a compassionate conservative who'd focus on domestic issues. Yet, September 11th forced him to rely on his cabinet. There he made the choice to listen to Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld over Colin Powell, and that is where his troubles began. Domestically, his compassionate conservatism disappeared as the economy became strained by the war and he acted out of line with traditional conservative methods.
Regardless, the eight years are almost over. This time next year a new President will take over, with a new chance to shape his or her legacy, and hopefully learn from previous mistakes made by those in their office.
Currently, the President sits with a staggeringly low approval rating. He has presided over a highly partisan eight years, which has seen the divide between Republicans and Democrats grow further apart. An unstable economy that is staring a recession in the face and the continued presence of an unpopular war threaten the President's chances of having a desirable legacy. When history looks back at the eight years of George W. Bush's Presidency, it may prove to be harsh on him.
Bush entered the Presidency in a controversial manner by squeaking out a victory in 2000, largely thanks to the Republicans in the Florida Supreme Court. After a quiet start to his term, September 11th occurred, awakening the neo-conservative foreign policy giants surrounding him. Everybody knows the rest: the faulty intelligence, the lack of a connection between Sadam Hussein and Al-Queda, the lack of WMD's in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, etc.
The President did manage to prevail in a closely contested race against John Kerry in 2004. Yet, Bush has fallen short on many of his long term goals over the past few years. In terms of domestic issues, he has failed to remake Social Security and productively advance a solution towards illegal immigration. The economy has been unstable, as the lower middle class received no aid from the President's policies. In foreign affairs, the war has become increasingly unpopular as people are beginning to recognize the difficulty of putting our troops in the middle of a civil war. Iran and North Korea still remain nuclear threats. President Bush's major ally in the war on terror, Pakistan, couldn't be further from being a stable nation.
Perhaps it is unfair to blame all these problems on the President. Everybody knew he was not a foreign policy expert when he ran in 2000, as he portrayed himself as a compassionate conservative who'd focus on domestic issues. Yet, September 11th forced him to rely on his cabinet. There he made the choice to listen to Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld over Colin Powell, and that is where his troubles began. Domestically, his compassionate conservatism disappeared as the economy became strained by the war and he acted out of line with traditional conservative methods.
Regardless, the eight years are almost over. This time next year a new President will take over, with a new chance to shape his or her legacy, and hopefully learn from previous mistakes made by those in their office.