My Beef with Bush

Now that I'm adding entries to my blog, I will say a little bit about politics. Since I'm not widely read in either world events, culture, or history, I can't say much that's authoritative or that is likely to further any given discussion. But I did vote for G.W. Bush, so I'll say a few words about how I've felt about his presidency so far.

I wrote before the Iraq War that if what the Bush administration was claiming was really true, then there was possibly justification to going back to war with Iraq. But one of the central elements in my own thinking was Accountability. The reason Hussein's government was a bad government (like so many others) was that there was no accountability, in the form of law and order, checks and balances, democracy, etc. On the other side of it, I was comfortable with Bush moving forward as long as there existed accountability for his decisions on the other side of it all.

And that's where I have problems right now. Maybe I haven't heard the whole story. Maybe there are good reasons, angles, etc. that justify what was done, that fill out the story we've heard so far. But on the surface of things, by all reports I've read, Bush has done everything he could to avoid the mechanisms and principles of accountability that are the foundation of a sound government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The mechanisms I'm familiar with (like the FISA court) sound like reasonable measures that would not substantively hinder genuine work to protect the nation, nor act themselves as a threat to national security.

But like I said, maybe we just don't know the whole story (a possibility that BDS-inflicted friends of mine would scoff loudly at). Check that--we DON'T know the whole story. The only issue is whether knowing the whole story would make us more sympathetic to Bush's decisions, or just angrier.

And depending on the bias of journalism and history-writers in the future, we may not know the whole story this side of Heaven.