The Angrier Right

For five minutes, he held my full and undivided attention.

I, like so many who have lived through what perhaps will one day be the most historically significant segment of our generation, was curious to see what President George W. Bush would have to say about maverick and Republican nominee Senator John McCain.

In many ways, President Bush is a maverick in his own right. After all, it was President Bush that  proclaimed independence from the international community and surged troops into Saddam Hussein's Iraq, firm in his belief that the threat to American soil was not only present, but inevitable. Depending on the spin and ideological compass, this was either the most heroic preservation of national security and moral ingenuity or the most foolish and ill-conceived attempt at permanent global dominance and international aggression.

Regardless, the United States has been a battleground for the last eight years. The weapons of mass destruction (or perhaps mass intimidation) have come in many forms, from political attack dogs to legislation erroneously promoted as patriotic. The country that we hail as the bastion of ideals and the promotion of liberty and prosperity is an assault hub of the left vs. the right, the black vs. the white, born-agains vs. the damned, the middle class vs. the elite class, and those who love their government vs. those who love their country.

But despite the wavering extremism that is conditional upon a free society, there is one position within our government that serves as the iconic unifier of not only partisans, but of all countrymen. I watched President Bush with earnest as he addressed the delegation and country via satellite at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. I was not expecting him to address the last eight years—in many ways, he is a victim of the times with which he served. But I was hoping for some kind of hope that it was the will of the American people that he honored and would express himself not as a Republican, but as the President of this country… as my president.

He had me for five minutes… until he threw out the term that made my blood boil—"the angry left".

In that moment, perhaps more fitting than anything I had hoped he would profess, George Bush proved why his presidency has become one of the most divisive and controversial leaderships in the history of free, democratic states. Evidently, the administration has failed to notice that it is not just the left that is angry, but so are the right, and black, and the white, and the born-agains, and the damned, and the middle class, and the elite class, and those who love their government, and those who love their country. The lowest approval rating in the history books is evidence that something within the last eight years has gone amiss, so much so that even the Republican Party realizes that the greatest threat to November will be the classification of a McCain presidency as George Bush's third term.

And it's the Republicans who have every right to be angry.

There was once a time when compassionate conservatism wasn't about impositions, it was about propositions. Conservatism used to be the movement of liberty, freedom, responsibility, accountability, and yes, peace. The reality is that the Republican Party has been hijacked by pompous religiosity, interventionist foreign policy, and the largest, most pervasive government since Franklin D. Roosevelt. President Bush has been the final bolt in the reassignment of party values and the relinquishment of political and government discipline. President Bush and his administration of meddling cowboys have collectively destroyed the credibility of the United States and the American people, to whom they claim patronage and subservience. While they were busy asserting American values across the globe, the value of the American dollar, American liberty, and yes, even the American name has fizzled at home and around the world.

Yes, people are angry and it's more than just the left. But the tide can turn and it will. There is hope in truth seekers from the left in Dennis Kucinich and the right in Ron Paul. There can be a coming together not of partisans and party coffers, but of citizens and leaders who collectively believe in the value of the Constitution and the office of the Presidency as the uniter of the American people and our American ideals.

But hope is not going to come in the form of party politics or disillusioned rhetoric and assaults on the left and the right. It comes from you. When you go into that voting booth on November 4^th, you will have the undivided attention of pundits and politicians. Will you choose the lesser of the proverbial evils or will you stand-up in recognition of your voice and reject the status quo and state of complacency? The power vested in you is greater than that in our government leaders because as unrestrained as they appear, it is you who has the power to stop them.