What Happened to Change We Can Believe In? - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com

What Happened to Change We Can Believe In? - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com
"What rational person votes in a worse leader than the one they voted in before?"



Unfortunately we are seeing a lot of immaturity. Too many don't want to face up to their own failings.

The folks who voted for President Bush are unwilling to accept that he and his administration badly failed this country on many levels, from the atrocious deceptions perpetrated to allow him to order Invasion of Iraq, to the lack of real planning for anything after the invasion which has resulted in unprecedented use of mostly civilian armed forces reservists forced to do 4 or 5 tours, coming back to no jobs, no real medical coverage and as we just learned the situation in Iraq after the invasion was and is much worse than we feared. Then add in the severely failed economic policies of the Bush Administration on top of high financial cost of waging two ground wars coupled with nation building and Bush voters shut down totally, moving radically even further right to vote for people like Angle, or O'Donnell or Miller -- who are even less experienced and more incapable than the Bush folks. What rational person votes in a worse leader than the one they voted in before?

Congress also does not want to accept their responsibility in allowing the Bush Administration to act so long unchecked. They provided no oversight whatsoever - not over the White House, not over Wall Street, not over the Pentagon, not over the Office Attorney General, not over the SEC ... they have severely let this nation down. A majority-republican Congress gave President Bush everything they asked for, but not many Democrats spoke out loudly against Bush's policies either, being frightened by the 'if you're not with us, you must be with the terrorists' fear-mongering by Bush Administration and neocons.

And then there are the journalists - who no longer appear to do any investigative reporting at all unless it's about how Lindsey and Paris survived their jail time. Plenty of books come out after the fact, dissecting what happened, nothing beforehand questioning if the banking practices were out of control or if the Bush Administration was being fully honest as they geared the world up to 'save' America from 'mushroom clouds' coming our way from Saddam's nuclear weapons or their fear-mongering which caused massive sale of plastic sheeting and duct tape.