Saturday, January 17, 2009

Bye Bye Bush. And believe it or not....Thank you!


Please write your own letters here!

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Dear (Ex) President Bush,
It has been years since I have been so angry with you and your administration (even though I still had reasons for being so). Aside from the Iraq war, I especially hated how you kept Americans divided. I was most pissed off when my patriotism was in doubt by other Americans every time i disagreed with you. There were so many many things that infuriated me that I exhausted even myself by how much I was keeping track. (I was even keeping a scrapbook and filled it up much too quickly. )

Sometime before your second term I remember saying to my husband, (as I’m sure many people like me were saying): “What our country really needs right now is a Bobby Kennedy or a Martin Luther King Jr.” But what did the Democrats do instead? . . . They made John Kerry the nominee.

Even as I knew that Kerry was so far from a Bobby or MLK Jr., I stupidly believed through hard work (and i did work hard) that we could beat you because John Kerry wasn't YOU. But I was wrong. And so I sunk into a lethargy that immobilized me. I no longer had the energy to hate your administration. (And I quit working on my scrapbook. Besides, I had already run out of pages.)

This all reminds me so much of my second ex-marriage. (Thankfully that lasted only 3 years and not 8!) My ex used to lie often and come home whenever he felt like it (drug addiction does that to a person). It was a voilatile & turbulent marriage, (much like our country during your presidency). One night my ex did not come home (not the first night either) and i realized it no longer mattered to me if he did. I surprised myself by not even being mad. I had been letting my marriage for so long turn me into a person i didn't recognize or even like anymore and I was tired. The anger that had consumed me for so long was no longer there. And I no longer cared to hang on to it (or the man) and on that night I knew there were better days ahead. (And I filed for divorce the next day.)

It was sometimes around Katrina that i started feeling the same way about you and your White House administration. I had reached a point and simply didn't care about being mad anymore because there were so many things by then, how could it end? So I just had to let it go. I had not been proud of the way I was coming off as so strident and righteous in how I talked about politics those days. And so, as it was with my ex-husband, i chose to give it up and to move towards something more positive.

Who would have thought Barack Obama would come into the picture so soon? I didn't start out thinking he was all that (you can ask my friends, I was looking towards Russ Feingold before him!) but my friend Keith gave me a copy of Audacity of Hope and Obama sounded so much like Howard Dean (only better and without the scream) and I started paying attention. When he gave that speech in Feb. 2007 announcing his candidacy I cried and sent my first check. Obama made me want to get back to work. He gave back my hope for a better America. I do truly believe he can pull this country together. Americans are already more invested in our country's future. (It's a start.) Whether he will be a Bobby Kennedy or a MLK Jr. , only time will tell.

I used to say that your biggest lie was when you said early on that you were a uniter, not a divider. But now I think you were right. And I want to thank you. Because of what you have done, you really have united us in a way that no other president has. Conservatives and liberals want the same thing - a new direction. We really want to get along better with one another. And most everyone i talk to really wants Obama to succeed, even those who didn't vote for him.

I am not sure without your failures that it would have been possible to elect Obama. I believe had you only moderately failed, that we may be swearing in Hillary on Tuesday instead. But Obama presented us with a picture of a different country from the one we live in today. And because of you more Americans voted for that change... Because of you.

So thank you, President Bush. Thank you for beating John Kerry in 2004 and thank you for helping us elect a better man. And I know you are a religious man with God's ear, so please pray for Barack Obama and our country. He has so much to fix. And he needs all of our prayers.

Sincerely,

jojo cucina cucina

12 comments:

Ummagumma said...

1)jo, come to michigan, I want to kiss your ass. that is an awesome fucking letter. I am truly excited to see what obama will do!

Modern Hippie said...

Dear George Bush, I'm sorry but I can never call you President, a President is supposed to lead his country, to inspire his country, to make his country feel safe. and you never did that for me once.

But i'd like to go along with Jocuina hear and say Thank You, because she is so right. if you hadnt been such an amazingly screwed up president, the failures; oh the list of failures and mistakes and not even mistakes because i dont think you regret them or think you ever did anything wrong. but if it wasnt for you, our country wouldnt realize just how bad we need Barack Obama, our country wouldnt realize that "hey we have no hope or faith in our country"

you helped us see the light. Thank You, and thank you for leaving.

equeyaya said...

Dear George,

You have destroyed every enterprise you've ever attempted to run in your career. Our country's downfall has been your crowning achievement. What's next for you?

Signed,

equeyaya waving buh-bye

~ T (grits) ~ said...

Really good letter, Jo!!

KatKit13 said...

Dear George,

I know you did the best you could most of the time, and that's what makes me sad. You could have surrounded yourself with better people, you didn't. You handled 9/11 well (and better than your opponent could have) but you rested on that laurel and never did more.

I hope retirement is good to you, but I have a suspicion you're going to be kinda lonely. Good luck.

Dear Jo,
Excellent letter/political memoir. I wish I had 1/16th of your brain.

IslandPearl said...

George,
Honestly, you never had a chance. You entered office under a cloud, and that cloud never left your presidency. You didn't divide this nation into red states and blue states. The media did that, with an able assist from the left, who could not accept the 2000 election results and could not legally overturn them. But you'll get the blame.

You chose some bad advisors and through misguided loyalty let them steer you into some truly bad decisions. Most notably the invasion of Iraq. We all, to varying degrees, will pay for those.

Where you lost me was in failing to have the backbone to admit when you were wrong and change course.

Staying the Course is admirable only when the course you've chosen is the proper one.

But there have been other disasters in your 2 terms that weren't of your making, but for which you'll bear the entire blame as well - Katrina and the economy being the largest.

There were many many forces at work that made what could have been misfortunes into true catastrophes there. But, because you have made yourself such a handy whipping boy, the root causes -- the underlying corruption, structural inadequacies and ignorance -- that really made those catastrophes unbearable are allowed to flourish.

Thank you for not proving your harshest critics right. We are not under a dictatorship, democracy continues to thrive, our civil rights are still intact and oh...by the way...thanks for keeping us safe from another 9/11 on your watch. Maybe if your predecessor had been a bit more diligent (and less diletante) 9/11 wouldn't have happened either. We'll never know, will we?

I hope that Obama and his advisors learn from your mistakes, and I hope that Obama can help the people figure out that it's not the man, it's the people that really make this country work. If they work as hard for this country as they did to get him elected, we have a decent chance. Election day isn't the end...it's just the beginning.

I hope that you can find a way to find peace in spite of all the dancing on the grave of your administration. You certainly could have done a better job, but you still deserve better than that.

Ummagumma said...

Pearl, you have no idea how much I have missed your brilliant mind since gumbo ended.

jojo cucina cucina said...

Just alittle more Bush fun on Inauguration Eve. Here is a YouTube of David Letterman's collection of Bush misquotes and they are pretty funny. And then last night when i couldn't sleep i started composing a song in my head.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEbZqvMu2cQ&feature=related

(This is sung to the tune of the Everly Brothers "Bye Bye Love". This is far as i got. )

Bye Bye Bush
Bye bye “angriness”
Hello “hopiness”
We have a new “uniter”

Bye Bye Bush
Bye bye red and blue
Hello America.
My smile could not be wider.

There goes George W.
Back to the ranch
You think I’ll miss him?
Oh, not a chance.
He was our president
For 8 long years
Goodbye to misspeaks
That hurt my ears.

JJ said...

Dear current-president-for-a-few-more-hours-thank-whatevergodyoubelievein-Bush,

Wow - I have not much to add to the insightful thoughts above. Yes - I believe it is true that people felt things were - and are - SO bad that we voted overwhelmingly for an African American with the middle name of Hussein. I'm not sure it would or could have possibly happened otherwise. That is not to take anything away from Barak Obama. He is indeed an amazing man and my comment is more about our tendency to never see past race to the character of a man. So I do believe that somehow it had to get as bad as you helped make it for us to decide we had had enough.
And on this day when we are celebrating the legacy of Martin Luther King Junior back to back with the inauguration of PRESIDENT ELECT!!!! Obama most of us are filled with hope. Hope that change CAN really happen. That maybe it takes a dream so big and powerful that its momentum carried us 46 years later to this point. And this soon-to-be-elected-president has asked us all to commit to a world we would like to live in.
And that is what I will say you didn’t do for us – you never asked us to sacrifice anything – even when we needed to. You didn’t bring us together when you had the chance – 9/11 was the perfect opportunity for us to unite around something real. And you told us to go shopping.
So I thank you as well. Not only are we electing a new president – but someone who has united us around values that matter. He makes us remember the best parts of ourselves – and calls us to something higher. And I believe that is the only way change will really happen.

Unknown said...

Cool..I can post as me.

JoJo...Furline posted her dress. Go see.

I'm going to so MISS this administration. Dick gave me such good fodder. Obama is gonna be boring compared to GW, Dick, Condi, and the rest of the gang. I mean Howard Dean can provide a few laughs but they shut him out. Richardson pulled out..Hill might not get in. They put a muzzle on Biden. I'm not going to be able to handle this.

GW, I'm gonna miss you man.

C O W B O Y said...

finally! figured out how to get a comment posted! but I'm too whipped to write the novella response I put the last 2 times it didn't work! To sum up... loved this commentary about our EX-P... man he made me crazy.

Here's to our hot new intelligent PREZ... just hope he watches his appointees a little more carefully... if they are sliding stuff under the radar on their own personal time... what will they do in their new positions?

jojo cucina cucina said...

Yay! here you are! i was looking for you on the latest blog post. I forget sometimes to go back and look at older stuff that folks may post on. Welcome Cowboy Sarita!