I don't consider myself particularly partisan, and I am a political moderate. I get equally irritated with both extremes and have an extremely low tolerance for rhetoric. I'm sick of hearing about the "Culture War," and I think I will scream if I hear any more of the intellectually lazy buzzwords used by the right and the left in place of true political discourse. That said, I am definitely planning to vote for Barack Obama for a second term, and I think George W. Bush was the worst president we ever had. While I'm not smart enough to weigh in on the public policy details of universal healthcare, I also do firmly believe that healthcare should be a right, not a privilege, and am amazed when people in an allegedly first world country point to this as the worst thing Obama has done.
In that same vein, I am reposting a nifty little pro-Barack, anti-G.W. piece that I came across a few years ago. I wish I could attribute authorship, but I have no clue where I got it from. I'm hoping that ignorance is a defense in copyright law. (There is one advantage to writing a blog no one reads.)
When Do You Get Mad?
You didn't get mad when over 200,000 U.S. Citizens lost their lives because they had inadequate care and no health insurance.
You didn't get mad when we gave people who had more money than they could spend, the filthy rich, over a trillion dollars in tax breaks.
You didn't get mad when lack of oversight and regulations from the Bush Administration caused U.S. Citizens to lose 12 trillion dollars in investments, retirement and home values.
You didn't get mad when we didn't catch Bin Laden.
You didn't get mad when Bush rang up 10 trillion dollars in combined budget and current account deficits.
You didn't get mad when we let a major U.S. city, New Orleans, drown.
You didn't get mad when GOP Joe Barton (rep. Texas) apologized to BP for BP having to pay people that were affected, displaced by the oil spill.
You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.
You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed energy company officials to dictate energy policy and push us to invade Iraq.
You didn't get mad that at the end of the Bush presidency we were loosing 750,000 jobs a MONTH.
You didn't get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.
You didn't get mad when we spent over 800 billion (and counting) on said illegal war.
You didn't get mad when Bush borrowed more money from foreign sources than the previous 42 Presidents combined.
You didn't get mad when over 10 billion dollars in cash just disappeared in Iraq.
You didn't get mad when you found out we were torturing people!!!!
You didn't get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.
You didn't get mad when Bush embraced trade and outsourcing policies that shipped 6 million American jobs out of the country.
You didn't get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.
You didn't get mad when, as a result of of the reckless harm done by the Bush administration, our country might never be able to fully recover...
No...You finally got mad when a black man was elected President and decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick!...
