Every four years We the People of the United States of America are called upon to choose our national leader, the man, or woman who will represent us on the world stage. Four years ago through Supreme Court intervention, George W. Bush became our 43th President. He did not come to the Office of the Presidency of the United States with a clear popular mandate from the We the People, and yet there he was, this vastly unqualified man who would be President.
My president has failed me, he has failed you, he has failed We the People! Over the course of the proceeding four years he has in my mind subverted the constitutional process that provides the foundation for our Republican form of governance. We the People have been neglected, We the People have been forgotten, and We the People of the United States have been ill-served by this President and his ideological administration run amuck.
George Bush is woefully unqualified to assume the mantel of the leader of the free world, and his actions have shown his ineptitude for the position. He is not an overly intelligent man, nor is he thoughtful, or imbibed with wisdom or vision, all qualities needed to be a successful President who moves the nation forward with clarity and purpose. George Bush has failed this simple test repeatedly, in that;
He has failed to lead with vision, intellect, reflective thought, common sense, and within the bounds of our Constitutional Republic.
He promised to bring honesty and integrity to the back the White House, but he has instead cloaked the People’s house in secretly and perpetrated well documented duplicity upon the American people.
He promised to conduct American foreign policy with humility and the treat our allies with respect and dignity, but instead has isolated the United States by his unilateral policies and alienated our allies with his arrogant posturing and general lack of international understanding.
He has violated the trust of the American people and the world by breaking a treaty confirmed with the advice and consent of the United States Senate, and sought to elevate the United States above other nations by turning his back on the U.N. and setting aside other negotiated agreements meant to bring civility to the world.
He seeks to quiet the dissenting voice of Americans by systematically, and willfully denying access to his presence of any American who might hold views contrary to his own, using decidedly undemocratic tactics such as labeling supports of John Kerry subversive and threats to the President, and having such people arrested if they refuse to relinquish their Constitutional right to free political speech.
His lack of leadership, refusal to seek advice from any person outside his very narrowly defined inner circle, his choice to ignore the admonishments and to heed the advice of the outgoing Clinton administration on matters of terrorism, his refusal to listen to his own counter-terrorism chief, and his single-minded fanatical fixation on Iraq, led to the disaster of 9/11, and the murder of almost 3000 innocent people.
He has taken our nation to war with a sovereign nation for reasons shown to be false or otherwise misleading, and in the process indirectly caused the deaths of over 1080 American soldiers (over 7000 wounded), and countless Iraqi men, women, and children.
He compromised the War on Terrorism and allowed Usama bin Laden to escape American and world justice, by going to war in Iraq, a nation that did not constitute a clear and present danger to the security of the United States; meanwhile those countries that do pose a threat, Iran and North Korea are allowed to develop nuclear weapons unhindered by American scrutiny or pressure.
He has irresponsibly abandoned all fiscal reason by pushing through the Republican led Congress five tax cuts, creating the largest budget deficit in the history of our nation, thrusting upon the shoulders of our children a burden that is rightfully our generations’ to bear.
He has forsaken the environment in an ill conceived plan to fatten the coffers of the energy concerns in this nation without regard to the American people, and he has recklessly allowed elements known to be harmful to human health to once again proliferate our air and water.
He has sent our military to war unprepared and ill-equipped, to conduct all phases of a military action in Iraq, and refuses, even after ample evidence has shown the folly of his present course, to bolster their numbers, clinging unwisely to a position sure to lead to disaster and Civil War in Iraq, thereby un-stabilizing the entire region, vacating his stated goals of bringing democracy to Arab states.
He has failed to bring to the Congress a viable coherent energy policy to begin to end the nation’s dependence on foreign sources of energy; this failure has led to greater dependence on foreign source of energy at a time when America should be turning to self-reliance.
He has failed to work in a bi-partisan manner with Democratic Party members in Congress, as he pledged he would do during his run for the Office of President, resulting in a misrepresentation of all of the people before the Congress.
He has introduced religion into the policy of the United States Government, causing tax monies to be diverted from programs after Congress refused to enact his faith based initiative program, circumventing the Constitutional budgeting process, and he seeks to amend our constitution so that gay and lesbian Americans cannot marry, violating the 14th Amendment, and sewing discrimination against a group of people once more into the fabric of our governing principles.
He has mismanaged the nation’s economy, ignoring and even praising the outsourcing of core American jobs to overseas concerns, ignoring the plight of the middle & lower-class American worker, and failing the leadership test once more by refusing to address the issues that would help keep American jobs in America, and he has done nothing to stem the rising tide of imports, pressure China to float it currency on the world market, and check the slide of the dollar against other world currencies.
He has ignored the heath and welfare of senior citizens and the disabled by failing to pass a credible, fair, and truly usable Prescription Drug Plan, refusing to allow Medicare to negotiate for reduced cost of prescription drugs, despite the fact that the Defense Department and Department of Veterans Affair already do so and realize substantial savings.
He has failed to put forth a Health Care Plan that would begin to address the swelling numbers of uninsured across America, at the very time America business of all sizes are asking their employees to share more of the burden on the increasing cost of health insurance, leaving all Americans vulnerable to the resurgence of diseases thought long tamed.
He has failed to address all of the reasons health care costs continue to rise in America; e.g. he clings stubbornly to the notion that litigate alone accounts for the sky-rocketing cost of mal-practice insurance, despite the evidence that insurance companies are attempting to increase revenues lost playing the stock market by increasing mal-practice premiums.
The President’s failure of leadership, vision, and constitutional perception, coupled with his lack of a real moral center based on sound Christian Principles, has led me to this place. I cannot abide a President who lacks an even basic understanding of the world in which we live, and relies on beliefs, rather than intellectual curiosity to inform his life-altering decisions. I cannot abide a President whom I can out-think at every turn; who slaughters our language whenever he speaks; who has earned the disdain of the world by his reckless and arrogant pursuit of neo-conservative policies no matter how ill-advised; who is controlled by those who have not the best interests of We the People at the forefront of their every action.
I am ever mindful of the Preamble to our great Constitution that begins with We the People of the United States of America in order to form a more perfect Union...under this President we have not pursued a more perfect Union, our nation is not a better place because he is our President, indeed it is worse, our lives are not better, our cities not safer, our children’s futures not assured, our liberties not protected, our standing in the world not more respected. And for underlying reasons, I cannot and will not support George W. Bush for reelection. I will vote for a change, I will vote for an intellectual, I will vote for a man who understands and respects the constitutional principles that form the foundation of our society, I will vote for a man who questions, a man with vision and wisdom, and a path that will (hopefully) take America to a brighter tomorrow infused with the light of promise that We the People can once more grasp the American dream without trepidation that tomorrow it might be snatched away at a whim. I will vote for a man with common sense, decency, moral character, and a record of unwavering public service to his country, who truly asked not what his country could do for him, but what he could do for his country. I will vote for John Kerry.
