George Bush and the Republicans have Too Much Power,
by Prentiss Smith
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is shameful what is going on in Washington D.C. today. The rich and the powerful are having their way with the elected officials that we the people have sent to the nation s capitol to represent us. But instead of looking out for the people who really need a helping hand, not a hand out, but a handup, they are selling us all down the river. The Republican party controls everything in Washington D. C. They have the Presidency, they control the Congress -- both houses, and they control the Supreme Court. They have all of the power, and they are abusing it. Republicans and Democrats ought to be ashamed at what has happened in this country since George Bush became President of the United States. This country went from having a projected 5 trillion dollar surplus to a now projected 3 trillion dollar deficit. This year s budget deficit is approaching 450 billion dollars. That is unheard of in this country. The country has lost almost 2 million manufacturing jobs, and more than 5 million Americans have lost health care over the past 4 years. Health care costs have sky rocketed. More people are in poverty than there were 4 years ago, and many of them are children. Gas prices are off the charts. The price of everything is going up, and wages are declining. It is a prescription for disaster, and we are headed for an economic meltdown over the next years. Our children will have to straighten out this mess if they can, but that is not a given.
On September 11, 2001 we were attacked by Osama Bin Laden, who was residing in Afghanistan. The World Trade Center towers in New York City were taken down by Al Queada, who were trained in Afghanistan. Nineteen men -- sixteen of them Saudis, flew airplanes into the towers, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. Osama Bin Laden killed 3,000 Americans, and yet, we have young men and women dying in the sands of Iraq in a war that they should not be fighting. It is heartbreaking to see the faces of the young men and women who are dying and being maimed in Iraq every day, and for what. They are dying because one man's ego has lead him to believe that it is all right to sacrifice young men and women for an ideology. We were attacked by Osama Bin Laden, and George Bush attacked Saddam Hussein. It does not make any sense, and it is hard for me to understand how Americans have been duped. The war on terror is real, but terrorism is a tactic that is used as a tool by Islamist Jihadist to wreak havoc and fear on civilized society. There are many Americans who believe that it was right and necessary to rout the Taliban out of Afghanistan and to hunt down Osama Bin Laden and kill him. George Bush did not do that. He took his eye off of the ball.
The arrogance of George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfield is so obvious that it is hard for me to believe that reasonable Republicans approve of what this trio has done to this country. If Democrats had done what these people have done -- Republicans would have run them out of the country. This President and the Republicans in Washington do not deserve to be rehired. President Bush has spent almost every day of the last year campaigning for President and misleading the country about why we went to war in Iraq and savagely attacking John Kerry. George Bush is the President, but there is nothing presidential about him. He has no stature, and that was obvious in the debates that he had with Senator Kerry. Any objective observer would have to admit that John Kerry was more credible, more presidential, and more intelligent. The Republicans and some Democrats have sold this country a bill of goods that have come up insufficient. As our young boys continue to die in Iraq -- we see the specter of a President who can not even admit that he has made any mistakes since he has been in office, and who has not held anyone accountable for the intelligence failures that he now so grudgingly admits. Look at the record of this President and the Republicans in Washington, who control every branch of government, and I believe you will see a group of politicians who do not deserve our support. George Bush, Dick Cheney, Tom Delay, and Donald Rumsfield are drunk with power -- absolute power. I hope it is not corrupting power.
-- Prentiss Smith, March 2005
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