THANK YOU, MR. PRESIDENT

            Be thankful for family and friends, be thankful for good health, be thankful for life but be thankful for a president? What? From the day I was born in 1966, there have been nine presidents and I could only vote for five of them.  So, which vote has been a good vote?

            My first presidential vote was during the re-election campaign of Ronald Reagan.  One can say I wasn’t very knowledgeable but as a young African-American male, I was supposed to support the Reverend Jessie Jackson but I didn’t.  I always felt I was a conservative who carried a brief case to college classes. And as a business student, I was learning how to make money. Yes, Regan did some good things such as stopping rampant inflation allowing a big boom in our economy. But he did some bad things too, such as starting an un-necessary war in Grenada and trading arms for hostages which was against the law.

            Then there was George H.W. Bush.  How could anyone really to go against his “Thousand points of Lights”. Yes, I was caught up in it but my views were changing.  Bush got America involved in yet, another war by putting 500,000 troops in the Middle East to kick Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. Although the war was short, there are long-lasting effects including the rise of Al-Qaeda and Osama bin laden.

            Then there was Bill Clinton and the 1992 National Democratic Convention in New York City in which the late but great Barbara Jordan was the Keynote speaker.  You see, in 1990, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and at the 1992 convention, I saw someone who looked like me and she was wheeled onto the stage. She gave a dynamic keynote address which got me thinking even more about the Democratic Party. Although Bill Clinton took rights away from others with  ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ and Defense of Marriage Act, he knew those decisions were bad for America, and yes, he was playing politics. But like that famous Bob Dylan song ‘Times they are a changin’, change was in happening in America and in me. 

            Then in 2000, America elected George W Bush. I was now on the side of people; all people. President Bush got us into yet, another war that would cost nearly 4,500 men and women their lives and for what.  A young Secretary of State John Kerry in 1971 testified before the Senate Foreign Relations committee uttered these famous words “.  How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”   Well, we can ask Bush how do you ask a man or woman to be the last person to die for a lie. America’s change and my change were now complete.

            President Bush, also, gave the American people huge budget deficits, a poor federal response to Hurricane Katrina, a justification for torture of detainees in an unjust war and in 2008, and a banking crisis that is still negatively being felt still today.

            Now let me think, is there something good that President Bush did for the American people? I’m in deep thought.  Give me some time.  I’m sure I’ll think of something.  Oh, if you are rich, you are richer.  And if you are poor, you are poorer.  If you are a soldier, you are fighting in a foreign land because of a lie. And if you dislike America, now you hate America.  Good job Mr. President!

            So because of President Bush, the American people now have President Obama, the first black president.  President Obama appointed the first Latina on the Supreme Court.  He speaks that we, the American people, is this together.  He speaks of fairness and equality. He is getting the American people out of the hole that President Bush dug for us

            President Obama often says “it’s the right thing to do”.    Then, Don’t ask, Don’t Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act went down.   He is fighting for immigration reform and gun safety among other things.  And if President Obama appoints an Asian American to a possible open seat on the Supreme Court, that will solidify that vote in the democratic column for a generation. And It would not be because of politics but because it’s the right thing to do.  
         
          Therefore, because of the horrendous policies of President Bush, he gave us the well thought-out polices of President Obama. Therefore, we have to give credit to a president who truly deserves our thanks. Thank you, Mr. President.