The Sheriff President Rides Into The Sunset

After hearing the sarcastic good byes from the crowd at Barack Obama's Inauguration, he would land later that day in Midland, Texas to give his Presidential farewell speech to a much more accepting audience.

Nevertheless, new public opinion polls from CBS News and the New York Times would show that on the last day of his Presidency George W. Bush was the most politically unpopular President leaving office in history.

In fact, only 22% of the American public approved of the performance of the 43rd President on his last day. His public approval rating was ten percent lower than the approval rating of the previous record holder of Presidential disapproval, Harry Truman, on his final day.

As Bush gave his farewell speech in Texas it was apparent that he was glad to be home and away from Washington D.C.. The speech itself was marked with the usual George Bush platitudes. His standard stump speech to justify his eight year Presidency was on full display. The quotes from the speech were vintage Bush: " He always did what he thought was right, even when it was unpopular", "9/11 changed him", He leaves with a good sense of accomplishment and he holds his head high”.

It was clear that, as Bush spoke, he believed that history will be more kind to his Presidency than current popular opinion. However, in case history needs any help, Bush is going to write a book about his time in the Oval Office to "nudge it along".

The current public opinion problem for the forty-third President is that George Bush became more of an international sheriff and less of an American President after the events of 9/11/2001.

Bush would become focused on the dangers of "the Axis of Evil" while he pledged to bring Osama Bin Laden to justice dead or alive. Suddenly, evil-doers were everywhere and America needed to send in a military posse to root them out. First, his posse went to Afghanistan but failed to bring the world's most wanted man to justice .

Next, the American posse moved on to Iraq and used "shock and awe" in an effort to capture the weapons of mass destruction that threatened our very existence. Unfortunately, no weapons were ever found even as the President appeared under an aircraft carrier banner that said “Mission Accomplished“.

So, the reason for his quest into Iraq had to change and the new goal became liberation and justice for the Iraqi people. It was like a western movie in which a town needed to hire a tough sheriff in order to bring law and order.

However, Bush was trying to bring democracy to a people of a foreign culture who had been in internal conflict for thousands of years. Meanwhile, as Bush played international sheriff, money was needed to keep this quest alive.

As a result, Bush never saw a spending bill from the Republican-controlled Congress he did not like. The compassionate conservative would oversee the greatest increase in discretionary social spending in history as the federal government usurped new powers in its war on terror.

In the year 2000, conservatives thought they voted for a man who they thought was running on the principles of limited government, protection of personal liberty, and the idea that the U.S. should lead globally by example rather than by force.

However, what they got was a "Sheriff President" who in eight years would dramatically expand government, leave his successor two unresolved wars, and be responsible for not preventing the greatest economic crisis in modern times.

As the 43rd President rides into the Texas sunset, leaving behind a badly damaged Republican brand, the problem with the Presidential election of 2000 becomes very clear. The voters had to choose between a delusional man who thought that he had invented the Internet (and now thinks he is a climate change expert), and a quixotic man who soon after being elected became an international sheriff in order to save America from evildoers by nation building in the name of democracy.

No wonder the 2000 election was so close that the outcome was based on a few hanging chads. The truth is that for the poor American voter there would be no bailout from the two names that appeared on the ballot in that strange Presidential election year.

http://www.eworldvu.com