“I am a uniter, not a divider,”
President Bush said while accepting the Republican nomination for president in 2000. So this week when I saw that even Fox News had Bush’s approval rating at a dismal 33 percent, I began to wonder: Who has the President united and what issues has he united us around?
After 9/11, the president inherited a country that had not been so united since World War II. Clearly, the president’s 88 percent approval rating from November of 2001 serves as evidence of the confidence and trust the American people had with this administration. Furthermore, we saw a country singularly focused on a common goal of helping each other recover and rebuild. Nowhere was this message made louder than by the throngs of people who waited hours in line to give blood, only to be turned away because no more was needed. In a fashion rarely seen during these partisan times, Americans stood united and with one voice said they wanted to help.
At that moment, in 2001, President Bush faced what I see as the defining moment in his legacy. With a country begging for leadership the president told us to fear not, take a vacation, visit America and go shopping. That direction was coupled with an over simplified explanation of 9/11: They hate us for our freedom.
Imagine instead, in the wake of the worst attack in U.S. history, the president had come before us and said, “It’s clear now that our alliance with certain Middle East countries has jeopardized our national security. I have an energy policy. It’s going to be difficult on all of us. We’ll have to refocus our collective efforts around wind, solar, ethanol and other renewable sources of power. I understand this will create hardship for some, but together, we are going to take back our security and free our country from the grasp of an evermore dangerous region.”
It’s almost difficult to imagine the president making such an honest statement. However, I believe we happily would have endured such hardship if we felt it was helping America recover after 9/11. This could have ushered in an era of bipartisan unity not seen since the New Deal.
Instead, President Bush has spent the last four and a half years dividing us. It seems that every few months the Republican Party rolls out an issue for the sole purpose of dividing and distracting. I would never say that these issues aren’t important – they are. Nevertheless, they are nowhere near as pressing as lessening our dependence on foreign oil, providing health care to children or insuring education for all. So instead of tackling the real issues, every few months we are thrust into debating “wedge issues” (issues brought up for the sole purpose of distracting and dividing). In 2002, it was affirmative action in college admission. In 2004, it was gay marriage. In fact,
Republicans put anti-gay marriage initiatives in 13 states where it was already illegal. How you make something that’s already illegal more illegal is beyond me. In 2005 we spent weeks debating whether or not
Terri Schiavo, a woman who was already brain dead, should have a law written just for her to keep her feeding tube in place. It deeply saddens me that the Republican Party would rather distract us into debating these wedge issues than finding workable solutions to real problems.
In these troubling times, where we are faced with the threats of terrorism, global warming, rising health costs and an education system that struggles to stay afloat, I hoped the Republican Party would use its control to govern effectively. Instead we’ve been treated to almost six years of smoke and mirrors resulting in no tangible benefits for middle and lower class Americans.
With the midterm elections only six months away, I hope all of us will see through the distractions and wedges and elect politicians who have the bravery and character to confront the real issues.

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