To my surprise, as liberal as she was, she said that “if there is something, bring it,” to those who wanted the House to investigate possible war crimes and other high crimes and misdemeanors against Mr. Bush and his team.
Then, when Barack Obama, came to power in 2009, I had similar high hopes that he would request the Justice Department to do the same but to my surprise, once again, he, Mr. Obama, said “it is better to look forward.”
Now come Jan. 2011, with Pelosi, no longer speaker, and the president on the ropes for his re-election bid, the GOP and Tea-Party-backed Congress reps come into Washington with no intention of “looking forward,” hence the repeal effort of the Obama-inspired health care legislation, chief in their minds. Are they wrong?
When you win an election, you believe it is a mandate. When the Democrats won in 2006 and 2008, it was a repudiation of the Bush wars and the manner in which he led on the economy so the Democrats went about getting out of the war, at least in Iraq, and fixing the economy, at least as how they saw fit.
Now that the Republicans have won their set of elections, they want to do what the Democrats did which is to repeal what was accomplished during their opponents’ tenure, however brief.
That is what elections are all about, right? The only problem I have is if the war effort was so unpopular and the way in which the economy was managed, or rather mismanaged, was so detrimental to the nation (and one could even argue that both are linked — the costs and the ensuing damage), how would electing Republicans who played a key role in both these areas be capable of rescuing the moribund U.S. economy?
Or is this the new normal? That the U.S. political system has become so partisan and so corrupt (with unlimited spending by anonymous groups) that folks who want to run for office like Obama, an opportunist, in my estimation, can only win if he says he will “end the war” (which he has not completely done so in Iraq; impossible to do), or like a typical Republican, who usually are also opportunists, in my estimation, can only win if he or she says that they will “end whatever Obama is doing?”
MATT PHILIPS
Mangilao, Guam
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