In just a couple of days it will come down to this -- a new president.

One never wants to be overly optimistic: but then one has no desire to continue what has been.

It’s hard to believe that very soon what so many of us have long wanted will come true -- George Bush (remember him?) will be gone.

Replaced with someone who actually is bright, articulate, amiable, caring, and – this is really important – not arrogant.

So much of the troubles the country now finds itself in can be traced to W. and his evil henchman Dick (could he have a more apt name?) Cheney.

Two incompetents driven to increase the wealth of their cronies at the expense of their country.

W. is a therapist’s dream. Does this man have Daddy problems or what? I feel sorry for his brother, Jeb, who was supposed to be the real politician of the family. No, Georgie wanted to be president and damn if the man didn’t make it happen. Of course, this meant that his brother had to do some ballot stuffing and chad hanging and vote stealing.

Hell – that’s politics!

It will be hard to forget watching the returns that night as W. and his father observed the results, too. Florida had already been called for Gore. W. was adamant that the broadcasters were wrong. He refused to accept their announcements. Sr. politely stuck up for his son by saying journalists had been wrong before.

There was a cockiness in W.’s tone, a sureness to his defiance, as if he knew something that the rest of us did not.

It wasn’t just that he was acting like the spoiled brat he had always been. No, he was waiting for a different result that he knew would soon come.

It was odd, but no surprise then when journalists later said that there had been a mistake. Florida had been called too soon. Slouched deeply into his overstuffed chair, W. pounded its arm. “I told ya! I told ya!” he said.

Really, there was nothing to tell. Not anything he could truly share. He knew “the secret.” It had all been carefully planned long ago.

Voting confusion would mask ballot dishonesty.

This was politics. Win at any cost. It doesn’t matter how you get there. What counts is that you arrive.

What a poor lesson for our children. Sort of one that matched the bad student that W. had always been.

That same C student  -- my guess is his grades were really mostly Fs and Ds, but he is a Bush, so he was allowed to pass his classes -- will appear in history books that our children will one day read.

W. will go down as one of America’s, if not the world’s, most inept presidents.

In just a few days, if everything aligns just right, tomes about the past will tell a very different story about the person who replaced him.

Barack Obama.

What a wonderful lesson for our children that will be.

By Dawn Yun

Labels: Barack Obama, By Dawn Yun, George Bush

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