(Credit goes to the Troglopundit, who says he created this motivator originally.)There is a mini-theme going around the right side of the blogosphere answering this important question. Most say yes at this point. A few say no. I would like to weigh I with my thoughts.
Let me say that I do not have a romanticized view of Bush 43. I was irked by the spending habits, was very unhappy with his attempt to appoint the unqualified Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, and really feel like he never tried to regain his footing after Katrina even though I think he was unfairly blamed for many of the mistakes there. So keep in mind I do not consider him a conservative icon. I would rather have had Dick Cheney as president with Bush 43 as veep.
All that said, I do miss him as president.
Virtually all of that longing comes from a comparison to Barack Obama. Part of that comes from policy. I am not going to go for a progressive in the white House period. My biggest gripe, as I said above, was the far too expensive expansion of government under his administration. He was still better than Obama in that regard. Something tells me he would have been better than John McCain, too.
But mostly I miss Bush 43 on a spiritual level. For all his faults, Bush 43 is a decent guy who loves his country. He was one of us. Bush 43 stood near the still smoldering ruins of Ground Zero and promised vengeance because e was as enraged as we were 3,000 people had been murdered on our soil. His was a presidential response.
Obama declares his support for a mosque to be built at Ground Zero, which is a completely dumb and pointless act since Americans, still honoring their dead, will not stand for such a desecration. It is saddening to know our president will.
Bush 43 never condemned his country was hopelessly flawed, never branded his critics racists in order to shut them up, or even hinted we ought to be thanking him for his governance the way Oama has. Character counts. Bush 43 has it. Obama does not even aspire to it.
You may think Bush 43 was an idiot or the second coming of Hitler, but the bottom line is I was proud of the government he lead and embarrassed by the one Obama is in (marginally?) in charge of. America deserves better.
