The Left’s Answer? Bush.
August 11, 2009
Every time I make an observation about ObamaCare, privacy issues, the war or the stimulus my friends on the Left say, “But Bush did….” It is like I am somehow responsible for what Bush did or the position he took. I guess I could respond, “But you guys supported slavery.“ I could even point out that current Democratic members of the Senate (i.e. Robert Byrd) were members of the KKK and filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Newsflash: Bush is no longer president. He wasn’t a conservative. It is 2009 and Obama runs the White House, Pelosi runs the House and Reid runs the Senate. We need to ensure we end up with a country we want to live in at the end of the day. We shouldn’t look back and use Bush to justify flawed policies, just as we shouldn’t look back to slavery to justify opposition to the Democratic party. None of the Democrats I know would support slavery today – we shouldn’t blame them for their parties support of the practice.
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Regardless of whether or not Bush was a conservative, he was certainly elected by conservatives. And that happened less than 10 years ago (not over a century ago). I see where you’re going, but the link is fairly tenuous. Today’s Republican party wouldn’t be recognizable to Lincoln, either.
What you’re probably hearing from those liberals is, “We wouldn’t have to be dealing with this in the first place if Bush hadn’t…” I agree that we shouldn’t justify bad policy by pointing out worse policies of the past, but I personally haven’t heard anyone actually make that argument before.
I think it’s entirely worthwhile to point out that certain Republican stances seem fairly hypocritical in light of policies that those same Republicans supported during the Bush administration. To hear Republicans in Congress decrying burgeoning deficits is, quite simply, laughable. Are the largest deficits in history bad? Yes. Would they be the largest deficits in history if Republicans under Bush hadn’t pushed to turn the projected budget surpluses into a tax cut for the wealthy? Probably not. And those two wars didn’t help, either.
Comment by Matt Buck — August 11, 2009 @ 5:05 pm
Well said, Matt.
Comment by nostrum — August 11, 2009 @ 5:30 pm
As for analogizing Bush and slavery, go right ahead. We will bear his scars for centuries, too. And it’s not that I’m holding you or the republican party responsible for Bush’s missteps, it’s that I’m dubious of any judgments you may make as I fear that perhaps the same reasoning you used to let Bush steal two elections and start two wars may be brought to bear on what is left of the American dream.
If ours is to be a world in which we can be proud to live, I agree; we must put the past behind us and focus on the issues at hand without resorting to finger pointing and justifications dredged up from the past. But, if we are to be the ones to make that better world, we need not fear owning our mistakes and taking it on the chin for poor judgment once in a while.
Mistakes are how we learn best. We learned a lot from Bush.
Comment by Justin S Hubbard — August 11, 2009 @ 11:44 pm