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Criticize
Bush's faults, not his character
With
the rapidly approaching November presidential
election, the mud-slinging by critics of
both President Bush and John Kerry seems
to be increasing tenfold. While both candidates
are getting their fair share of heat, it
seems to me that President Bush bears the
brunt of these asinine attacks.
While
the Kerry attackers bring up Kerry's Vietnam
service and him throwing out his medals,
the Bush attackers stoop to far lower tactics.
It is my belief that the only reason for
stooping so incredibly low is because they
really have nothing more intelligent to
use as material.
One
of the ridiculous accusations against President
Bush has been highlighted and spun by fat,
bloated, hack documentary director Michael
Moore. In "Fahrenheit 9/11" Moore
points out how on the morning of Sept. 11,
2001, Bush was in a Florida classroom reading
to children."
Moore
proceeds to describe how Bush sat there
for 15 minutes after one of his aides whispered
in Bush's ear that there had been an attack,
and uses this as some kind of damning blow
on the man. This has got to be one of the
pettiest arguments against Bush that I have
ever heard.
Let
us say that Bush had actually gotten up
out of his seat right away in that Florida
classroom, and subsequently flew off to
the White House to address the impending
crisis. Would this have made any difference
whatsoever? Absolutely not, and anybody
who disagrees seriously needs to reassess
their view. President Bush did a great job
of rallying the country after the Sept.
11, 2001 terrorist attacks, yet because
he didn't leave the Florida classroom where
he was reading to children immediately makes
him unfit as a president? I don't think
so, and neither should you.
Another
typical attack on President Bush is the
criticizing of his manner of speaking. It
is blatantly obvious that Bush is not the
best speaker in the world, that much is
clear, but because he stumbles occasionally
over his words and makes some gaffes in
his vernacular,'is he not capable of being
president?
People
love to call him an idiot because he mixes
up his words but they don't seem to want
to focus on the man's accomplishments. He
declared war on terrorism, toppling Afghanistan's
Taliban government, a main supporter of
Osama bin Laden; he continued by ousting
brutal dictator Saddam Hussein from power
in Iraq, freeing a nation's oppressed people;
amazingly, he rallied an entire country
after the devastating effects of the worst
terrorist attack ever on American soil.
It
is amazing how quickly people overlook these
major accomplishments to take a cheap shot
at the man's Southern drawl and occasional
mix-up of the English language, even when
the man has been lighthearted enough to
poke fun at himself for the same thing!
In
the end, if one feels the need to criticize
Bush for legitimate things then be my guest,
but don't stoop so incredibly low'that one
must actually use the fact that Bush didn't
leave the Florida classroom instantly after
hearing the news of the terrorist attacks
as a trump card against his possible reelection.
If the main argument against Bush is that
he stumbles while speaking, and this is
all the criticism that liberals can muster
up against Bush, it is time to get real.
Gerry
Wachovsky is the Diversions editor for the
Daily Forty-Niner and a journalism major
at CSULB. Letters to the editor are welcome
at
OpEdd49er@csulb.edu.
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