Dear Mr. President,
You have now been in office long enough to know that the honeymoon was over months ago. You are also an adult and have lived long enough to know that at some point we are all judged by our actions and our performance. We teach our kids that the people they hang out with affects their character and that as responsible adults, they must be willing to stand and face the consequences of their actions.
Reuters reported that you attacked Bush’s “disastrous” economic policies again and this time in President Bush’s home State of Texas. Just so you know, this type of behavior is not flattering to you and it falls far beneath the Office of The President. Here’s just a little bit of the story to refresh your memory:
At a fund-raising event for Democrats in Dallas, where Bush now lives, Obama said the former president’s “disastrous” policies had driven the U.S. economy into the ground and turned budget surpluses into deficits.
Obama defended his repeated references to Bush’s policies, saying they were necessary to remind Americans of the weak economy he inherited from Bush in January 2009.
“The policies that crashed the economy, that undercut the middle class, that mortgaged our future, do we really want to go back to that, or do we keep moving our country forward?” Obama said at another fund-raising event in Austin, referring to Bush’s eight years as president.
I thought that I should write you this letter and give you a head’s up on what this looks like to regular folks because obviously your speechwriters are juvenile and you aren’t proof-reading your remarks. First of all, Bush’s policies while perhaps a bit distracted at the end did not injury me and my family directly nor could they be called disasterous. During Bush’s two terms in office, we lived within our means and paid our taxes happily and enjoyed the fruits of our labors within our small business. We worried about another terrorist attack, but we knew that the best and brightest of our young men were in the fight defending us and doing everything they could to protect us. We cried when those coffins came home and we wished it didn’t have to be that way, but we also remembered 3,000 who died on one single day in New York and we trusted Mr. Bush when he said that the terrorists would pay.
Were we completely happy with Mr. Bush? Probably not. There are always things that we as citizens wished could be different. For instance, when all your liberal friends lied about Bush’s politics or his beliefs or his motivations, we would have preferred him to stand up for himself and challenge your allegations. Even Karl Rove regrets not letting Bush defend himself more. Was the “Mission Accomplished” statement premature? Probably, but I suspect that excitement had overwhelmed him because I hear flying in one of those jets and landing on a carrier can be an awesome moment. Was the TARP bill a bad bill to sign? Absolutely. Do I regret that he signed it? Absolutely. Do I hold him responsible in part for what we are experiencing now? Absolutely. But not for the reason you think.
I hold Former President George W. Bush responsible for where we are now because in the end, W quit listening to his gut and started listening to experts. Experts get it wrong every day, but in deciding to listen to them instead of his gut, W lost his way in the last six months of his Presidency. Unfortunately, in doing so, he paved the way for your election. However, even until the end, George W. Bush, the man, never lost my respect. I disagreed with him on several issues, but I always respected him as a man.
You see, Mr. President, you have a credibility problem and you have a respect problem. Speaking just for myself, you’ve never earned my respect which for me directly affects your credibility. From where I sit, you’ve lied and cheated to get where you are and it doesn’t seem to bother you. You’d rather point the finger of blame at someone else than to “man-up” and take the hit for the team. It used to be that the “buck stopped” at the President’s desk, but it appears that will never happen in your administration.
You’ve loaded your administration with scapegoats and expendables. You enjoy the good life while many Americans live in economic pain. Unlike George Bush, I believe you’ve always thought deep down that it was all about you. You’ve created a mental image of the perfect you and anything that doesn’t fit that mental image of yourself must be blamed on someone else. At least when I saw President Bush stand beside someone less fortunate than himself, I really believed that he understood their pain and that he wished fervently that he could fix all their problems.
Mr. President, you are in so many ways like the only child who breaks a vase while his parents are not looking and then says, “It’s not my fault!”
You can blame everyone else all you want, but the economic numbers do not lie. You can try to shift ownership onto a President who hasn’t been in office in 18 months, but the unemployment numbers do not lie. You can blame previous administrations or even people within your administration, but your approval ratings do not lie. You read snarky speeches off your teleprompters all you want, but your actions do not lie.
I hate to say this, Mr. President, but you are a bully. You have felt slighted all your life and you’ve worked very hard to gain the position of power you now hold. But you did it all for the wrong reason. You did it to hold power over those whom you perceive have wronged you in the past and unfortunately, you cannot hide it. During the election your charisma and the emotion of the moment swayed many people to ignore these shortcomings. But when you won the election and was sworn in the Office Of The President Of The United States, you didn’t believe you had to represent ALL citizens and you have done everything you can to alienate more than half of the citizens of this great Country.
You’ve told us our beliefs are wrong. You’ve told us that our Country is no longer the great Nation that we all believe it is. You’ve told us that we must tolerate those who have actively participated in trying to kill as many of us as possible. You’ve told us you know more than us and that we don’t understand the bigger picture. You’ve told us that what was up was down and what was down was up.
Ultimately, the reason you have a credibility gap with most Average Americans is that what you say doesn’t match what we feel or believe in our hearts. If you ever figure this out, you might reconsider some of the positions you’ve taken in the past. Perhaps, you might even take responsibility for some of the things that have gone wrong.
Unfortunately, I’ve never see a man with “little man’s disease” outgrow his limitations and I seriously doubt you’ll outgrow yours.
Sincerely,
An American Citizen
P.S. See you in November!
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