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When Barack Obama is inaugurated as our nation’s 44th president, he will have one man to thank: George W. Bush. Many pundits have asserted that Obama’s election signifies America’s rejection of the Bush Administration. While this may be so, Bush’s greatest gift to the Obama campaign was not merely his meager approval ratings. Bush has given Obama something far more intangible and much more important: The trust of the American people.

Love him or hate him, Bush has elevated our political process by staying true to his word. On Sept. 12, Bush stood on the rubble of the World Trade Towers and defined the future course of his administration. As a result, the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, while controversial, were hardly a surprise.

In 2004, when the war in Iraq was looking grim, Bush stood by his original decision, and shockingly won reelection. Though he has often been mocked for “staying the course,” Bush has remained steadfast. When Bush was reelected, the American people knew exactly what they were in for. Despite his many shortcomings, Bush never pandered to the electorate.

Under Bush, the American people have increasingly come to feel that they can take politicians at their word. While people may adamantly disagree with various platforms and ideas, they now assume that politicians are accurately representing themselves. Bush has caused honest skepticism to fade from the American electorate.

Obama’s victory was the clearest indication that Americans now trust their politicians. No serious person argued that Obama had more qualifying experience than McCain to lead our nation. Likewise, glimpses into Obama’s past revealed that he had many faults with regard to his judgment.

Lacking both experience and judgment, Obama captured the hearts of the American people through his charisma. When Obama spoke, people were inspired. Though his ideas remained unproven, people trusted him to improve their quality of life.

It is hard to say with certainty how Obama will lead. His record indicates that he leans to the far left of the American mainstream. His campaign, however, often took a more moderate tone, even winking at conservatism with regard to some issues.

In previous years, such inconsistency would have caused widespread skepticism among voters. Instead, the public has chosen to take Obama at his word. Obama has presented a moderate picture of his views, and the American people will expect such moderation from his administration.

Having come off the last seven years of the Bush administration, the public believes that they can trust Obama. Over the next four years, Obama’s success will be largely determined by how he handles that trust. Is he really the man he has presented, or is he just another pandering politician? I can’t wait to find out.

Both campaigners tried to distance themselves from bush as far as possible. McCain or Obama could've won this and the actual popular vote was not extremely in his favor. I don't think obama has to thank anyone for his victory, he just ran a better campaign.

Yes but it was easier for Obama to "distance" himself from Bush then it was for McCain. Obama is a young black guy who differentiates quite a bit with Bush. While McCain is an old white guy who varies a bit from Bush but not enough to escape him all together. Their skin colors were enough to help Obama and McCain's policies which were similar to Bush's gave Obama the helping hand he needed in framing McCain as the another Bush.

Bush didn't help much Obama against McCain. Actually, Bush is the first president who didn't support his party candidate during his campaign. If anything helped Obama is the economy recession.

For those who give their full trust in politicians are fools.

Skin color merely symbolized change. Its not Obamas fault GWB sucked at being president and therefore he doesn't owe anything to him. Thats like saying Theodor Heuss got elected because Hitler was such an a**hole. Like i said if you look at the popular vote there were alot of americans who were voting McCain, it wasn't a landslide victory. McCain lost the election because he lost the respect of his fellow republicans and made his campaign extremely negative while alienating alot of voters with his Palin tactic. There were millions of ppl who felt McCain was doing the right thing and if he had won nobody would be saying he won because Bush was bad. Like i said, Obama doesn't owe his victory to anyone but himself, his party went out and signed up ppl and got ppl excited to vote, if you look at the demographic he pulled in you can't say it was because he was black or because Bush was awful. It says that he is charismatic, optimistic, and represents something new. That was all him, any other democrat would've run under the same type of campaign just like Clinton was doing. And if a black guy was running a campaign under the republicans like McCain was doing he would not have been elected. So like i said and i'll say it again. He owes nothing to GWB, this was his well fought and well earned victory.

This will be remembered as one of the most phenomenally stupid political moves of the century.

For arguments sake. Who was alienated?

Many centrist and democrat voters were uncomfortable with Obama's lack of experience and lack of message (other than the amorphous "change" he kept repeating). By choosing Palin, McCain made her lack of experience and her rightish message the issue. The centrist and democrat voters became much more comfortable with Obama after hearing Palin.

Also, conventional wisdom states you pander to your base at the beginning (in order to raise money) and move to the middle at the end (in order to get votes). Every candidate on both sides has done this for ages. There was no purpose in wavering from this standard.

Palin brought in zero votes for McCain. Absolutely not a single one. The right would have voted for him regardless of his choice of VP. Those votes are never in doubt. The choice of Palin simply guaranteed the votes McCain was already guaranteed of getting.

The votes that were in play were the centrists. These are the centrists that flocked to Reagan and flocked to Clinton. The majority of the centrists were leaning toward McCain prior to the choice of Palin as VP. They flocked to Obama afterwards.

I would like to add, not only did Obama's Victorious winning change America, but the latest news show it really inspired the world. Yahoo news consider him the "First truly Global U.S President"

People from china to paris are even excited. I don't think this would of happened with McCain.

There was a documentary on the CBC a couple days ago about the Bush administration - it was really good. It looked at how Bush isn't a bad guy, he was just too naive, trusting, and gullible. It also explained how he really does believing in the mission of bringing democracy to the middle east. The problem, they explained, was Dick Cheney. He was said to be the most powerful man in American history excluding all presidents. He exploited Bushes simplicity and he was blamed for the administrations failings.

Alienated- to turn away; transfer or divert: to alienate funds from their intended purpose.

So everybody. Why? Because Palin was a fail tactic (He invited her to run with him because he thought having a woman vice pres. would get him the voters that were voting for Hilary, and obviously that failed because Palin is stupid.)

i agree and im one of them....lol

I think if GWB proved anything during his presidency and his entire career and life is that he's really just an average joe who loves America. I remember John Stewart and even some ppl i know personally who met him saying that he really is a nice, down to earth guy. But He had no business being president and we payed the price for that. We can say it was dick cheneys fault and agreeably he had alot to do with it but that by no means excuses Bush from the responsibility he agreed to take on and failed miserably at.

alienated is the wrong word. More like scared all the independents away

Link please?



I have to say that this is true I was watching Obama's speech and I believed most of it =/.'

People were going crazy in Boston they were so happy xD

its the right word....

Bush came in with a libertarian message. So Cheney was the Neo-Con that perverted Bush into a neo-con, eh? Where did I put my shotgun.


Don't you find it sad that this congress has the lowest approval rating in the history of our country yet 90% of the incumbents will walk right back into office; some of them weren't even challenged.

Your so right.

lol was this an essay you had to write for school?

on topic: you present two ideas here; that Bush gave Obama a "gift" and that Obama's path in his presidency will be full of uncertainties and he himself is not a politician without troubles. Let me tell you that no one ever gave anyone a gift - Bush's failure in his eight years was not intended to make it easy for the next candidate to champion change and win the presidency - he was simply a poor leader. Its not a gift, merely a political situation that was advantageous for the Democrats. But in the first place, lol, why does it matter if it even was a so-called gift? Should Obama repay Bush for his kindness? Whatever prompt you were given, I'd say its a poor thesis and you should write about a different topic. The kind of discussion you're leading won't result in anything worth concluding. Everything you said about Obama and the expectancy people have in him are true.

This mostly goes with you're topic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaSmfYKxlzo

Well Bush was defiantly a funny president I can give him that, and he kept America safe after the 9/11 attacks, other than that not much to say about him lol.

To the post that says Obama has no experience. Actually, I do like people that has no experience in politic AT ALL to run as a president. Why? Because he won't be corrupted, less BS talk, and he's like everyone of us. Most politicians buy their way thru political campaign day in and day out talking BS to people. They are like car salesman. As long as they get the vote, thats all matter. Remember a vice president that became president after Nixon got kicked out of the office? Thats an example of a guy that has no experience and he ran a country like a local diary store.

I'm no American, but thats my 2cent.

It's funny to hear Republicans complain about how the US has now elected a communist into the White House. Fact of the matter is: in almost every country in the world, Obama would be considered right wing, and he's far far removed from anything considered communist here. Bush has left the country in the greatest national debt situation in the history of the nation, and rather than considering that something must be done they're talking about adding 2 extra digits to the scoreboard that displays this debt. It should be interesting to see what changes Obama might make, but it's clear that he's got a very difficult task ahead of him.