Why do I hate President Bush?

I was sitting in the airport the other day and listening to some loud mouth next to me talk about how people talk so much about not liking Bush, but not talking enough about how others would do any better. I think, to a certain extent, he is right. Much talk (even from me) has been more about what Bush is doing wrong and how bad he is without giving much of an alternative solution. Well, I guess my response to that is this...most people I talk to have issues with Bush as a person and his moral fabric as much as they do with his policies. And this should be something that Republicans are comfortable talking about...I mean, they have a history of moving talk away from issues and focusing on "moral character"....it is interesting that now that they have a leader with questionable moral character, they are tending to want to talk about issues...well, that is not true either...they don't have a great record on issues, so they don't want to talk about that either. So, what they do is just run around calling anyone who doesn't side with them "unpatriotic". Sounds like a great way to run the country, eh?

Anyway, that was a bit of a tangent, but this is my first post so give me a break, eh? So, back to my original thought about why people don't like Bush. I should probably say "don't like" or "disagree with" rather than hate because "hate" is such a distasteful word. So, here are the top 5 reasons I believe people would prefer to see someone other than Bush in the White House:

5. His complete inability to speak like an educated man
4. His disregard for public debate and love for secrecy
3. His apparent inability to hear any dissenting opinions
2. His loyalty to his inner circle peeps regardless of what the evidence shows
1. His unmatched, unconstitutional power grab for the executive branch

So, it is not just issue-driven. But, I am certain that some of the issues-related problems are a direct result of the things listed above. Now, to the issues:

1. Iraq War -- as I have mentioned in one of my other world famous blogs, I truly believe that Bush screwed the pooch on this one. For a multitude of reasons

• Iraq had nothing to do with the incidents of 9/11 and were unrelated to the War on Terror.
• The information leading to the attack on Iraq, the presence of WMDs and the "imminent" threat posed to the US (read, Israel) was false and, as far as we know, Bush knew it was spurious at best.
• Even if Iraq did have something to do with the War on Terror, the best way to protect US citizens is to protect them. Spend the billions of dollars on better airport security..post National Guardsman at Airports, not in Fallujah. Like I have said, if you think someone is going to break into your house and do damage, it is best to install a top of the line alarm system...not go out into the night trying to kill everyone who might possibly try to break into your house. It is assinine.

2. Unconstitutional Actions

• It is ironic to me that Bush and his cronys will go around calling people unpatriotic as they trample all over the constitution, and, in effect, make America less of a beacon of light to the rest of the world...For example...
• Illegal Phone taps -- direct result of the power grab. Truly, who thinks that monitoring all domestic phone calls is the best way to fight terrorism? Are you kidding me?
• Gitmo - holding people you THINK might be terrorist or have helped terrorist without cause and without due process? Does that not go completely against what this country stands for?

OK...Liska has been pulling me from this post to see her castle and other lego projects so I have lost my train of thought...to be continued. :-)

Let Freedom Ring!

jak