I Have To Admit

I just watched the State of the Union address tonight. President Bush's 7th and final speech to the joint session of Congress and this nation. I know that he is an extremely unpopular president now. His approval rating is approaching that of Nixon after Watergate. He got us into a war that people don't like anymore. I am not saying I necessarily like the man. We agree on several issues, mainly social issues and I commend him for fighting for what he believes in.

Now looking back, having watched this final State of the Union from Bush, and listening to the commentary before and after, I have to admit that I feel sorry for him. He has just under a year left in office, and already the prospects running to take his spot are more important than he is. Besides the address tonight, I think we have almost forgotten that we have a president in the midst of looking for the next one. The Congress is completely controlled by the opposing party, meaning he already has almost no political clout, but then his own party is abandoning him left and right.

Were this England, Bush would have resigned long ago with this little support from his party and the public. (Well, he wouldn't be the president anymore if it were England because the party in control of Parliament chooses the Prime Minister, but you know what I mean.) But it just seems to me that at this point, even things that the president and congress agree on, simply don't matter. I heard before the speech from the commentators what Nancy Pelosi said about the president. She called him names and said several things with an attitude of "screw the president".

Every candidate for every office talks about unity in the country. They talk about stepping beyond parties and doing what is right. What ever happened to that? We couldn't get compromise when the president was strong, we get even less now that he is weak. So I really do feel sorry for the president. His legacy will likely not be a good one. He is publicly disrespected and derided for every little thing he says or does. Can anyone with sincere honesty try to tell me that he wanted to screw up the country? What benefit would it be for him to do that? I don't have a huge amount of respect for some of the stuff he has done while in office, I don't agree with everything he says. But for me, the fact remains: he is still the president. He deserves respect as the Commander in Chief, the Executive, the Head of this Nation.

I am far more centrist leaning than my parents. I am a registered independent. I side more with the Republicans, but that is irrelevant to what I am about to say. My parents are very conservative, but there is something they said when Bill Clinton was the president that I will never forget. While Clinton was still the president I said something pretty disrespectful about him. I immediately got in trouble for it. My parents said that it doesn't matter what I think of him, he is still the President. That has stuck with me for a long time. Were Bush in the opposite party, it wouldn't matter how much I wanted him out of office, I wouldn't make the public remarks that some do. He is still the President, whether you like him or not. He WAS elected to the maximum amount of terms.

So yeah, I do feel sorry for the man now. He is at the end of a job that didn't go so well. He is facing a hostile congress every step of the way. There isn't much going his way, and there won't until he leaves. Barring of course the capture of Osama bin Laden. I guarantee his approval would skyrocket at least temporarily if bin Laden was captured and brought before the country for justice. I guess all we can do now is hope and pray that these last few months will be less stand-offish and that something can get done in Washington. I don't know if it's possible anymore for the two parties to agree to a compromise. But I hope that sometime they get over that. Maybe the election year will solve a lot of problems. A new congress, a new President, maybe the changes will finally allow us to get beyond our current differences. One can only hope.