Farewell, President Bush

I thought it would be fitting on President Bush's final day in office to give him the send off and thank you that he deserves. And no, this isn't sarcasm, either.

He never got a break from the liberal media, or the liberal Americans. He deserves more than that. He got such a bad rap from them, and I'm sure their words cut him quite deeply - he deserves at least ONE voice thanking him for the job that he did. And I know I'm not alone. I'm sure others feel the same way I do.

Now I don't agree with everything he did. He lost a bit of my support towards the end with all of the bailout crap, but I'm not here to discuss what I thought he did wrong; too many people already do that enough for me. I'd rather discuss what he got right (a novel idea to most liberals, I know).

I admire this guy a lot and I'll tell you why. Mind you, I don't say I admire someone lightly. So here are the top 4 accomplishments of President Bush:

He kept us safe from terrorists.
Whether you believe that or not, the fact still stands that we have no had an attack since 9/11 and don't think that they didn't try. I only hope we can stay this safe during the next presidency.

Osama bin Ladin is only releasing audio tapes now. For a guy that used to release video tapes every other week, isn't that odd? Either we got him or he has barricaded himself underneath a rock. Either way, he is less of an influence.

And the liberal media likes to gloat that Iraq was a disaster because we didn't find any WMDs. Well, something I found out recently, that was NEVER reported in the main-stream media: After Bush took off the gloves against Iraq, Libya VOLUNTARILY gave up their WMDs. President Bush's actions had such an impact that he caused another potentially dangerous country to give up their weapons VOLUNTARILY!!! Ok... so maybe that wasn't the result you were going for... but kudos to you, man! Your actions instilled such fear into others that they throw up their hands and say "no way, I'm not messing with you". What a way to stick it to them! What a way to show them that the US wasn't going to back down and take this terrorist crap. You had them running for the hills with their hands up in surrender.

He stood up the whiny U.N. and the Global Warming hysteria
You have Al Gore saying that if you don't believe in his crap, then you are equal to flat-earthers. So okay, President Bush didn't come out condemning global warming (I would have loved it if he did!), but he didn't put up with the U.N.'s Kyoto agreement, which basically put all the blame on the U.S. and gave a break to other countries that polluted as much as or more than we do.

The Tax Cuts
Not as great or as effective as a tax holiday or the Fair Tax, but it was a start... maybe a start in the right direction as far as taxes go... but we'll see if PEBO continues them.

But here's the thing that I'm most proud of President Bush accomplishing...

I'm running out of time here, so I'll get to my last, but least point. I deeply, deeply admire his conviction and his guts to stand up for what he believed in.

He wasn't a poll watcher, like Clinton. He didn't do stuff just to make his ratings go up or just stop doing things because it made ratings go down. It hurt him to hear how unpopular he was and hurt to hear what people were saying about him, I'm sure, but he stuck to his guns.
Wow. How many of us can do that?

I have trouble standing up the the dozen or so people in my office when it comes to my political beliefs. He had to face the entire United States, and even the world, sometimes. I'm currently reading Strategery by Bill Sammon and he is describing Bush's re-election. Karl Rove went to him and pointed out that he might want to put Iraq on the back burner for awhile, because it would hinder his re-election. But Bush said he didn't care if he got re-elected or not - what was happening in Iraq was important to him and he was going to continue was he was doing, no matter what.

Wow... that mirrors the conviction of our founding fathers. You never see that attitude anymore. In fact, John Adams did a similar thing - the people were pressing him to go to war with France. He didn't think it was a good idea and we didn't. They warned him that he was hated and would be put down in history as the worst president ever. He became very depressed over it, but never faltered. He believed in it so much that his own popularity didn't matter to him. Way to go! I only hope that one day I can get the confidence and conviction to believe so much in a cause that it empowers me to stand up to people like that.

So, in closing, thank you so much, President Bush, for the last 8 years. I only hope that one day history recognizes you as the upstanding guy you are. I hope all of your hard work doesn't go to waste. But for now, enjoy your retirement - you deserve it.