Precedent: A Parting Gift From Dubya to Barack

But, as I find the pictures of George Bush leaving Washington DC exhilerating, I also feel a sense of the tremendous weight that Barack Obama must feel at this moment with the overwhelming challenges in foreign and domestic policy. Now that the former is gone… I have begun to wonder if there was anything good that Dubya left Obama and in reflection of the past eight years were there any positives that could have come from the Bush administration. I have concluded that although Bush will certainly not be missed, he has set certain precedents that Barack Obama can wisely build upon to forge a new and far more powerful direction.

The majority of Americans breathed a sigh of relief at noon on Januray 20th when the Bush administration was finally, forever over.  Barack Obama, now our President, has taken the oathe of office and is beginning to forge a new American journey – hopefully – into a more unified people.  But, as I find the pictures of George Bush leaving Washington DC exhilerating, I also feel a sense of the tremendous weight that Barack Obama must feel at this moment with the overwhelming challenges in foreign and domestic policy. Now that the former is gone… I have begun to wonder if there was anything good that Dubya left Obama and in reflection of the past eight years were there any positives that could have come from the Bush administration. I have concluded that although Bush will certainly not be missed, he has set certain precedents that Barack Obama can wisely build upon to forge a new and far more powerful direction.

Notice to the reader: before focusing your anger over the Bush administration on this writer – read the entire article and give it some thought. This is not a defense of the disastrous policies that have sorely harmed the United States… this is just an attempt to see the reality of the challenges Barack Obama faces as our new President and make the best out of what the Bush administration has left the Executive Office.

Understandably, there is a rush to judgment on the legacy of George W. Bush. The low poll numbers and many political pundits would suggest that he is the worst president in modern history, which history may conclude to be right. Dubya, like Truman, Nixon, and Carter, is leaving office as a hated man. As a Democrat, I am in no shortage of criticism of our former President. George W. Bush has seen the failed funding of No Child Left Behind, the almost complete mismanagement and failure of the Iraq war, Katrina, Guantanimo, an immigration policy failure, a string of tax cuts that has plunged Americans into more debt, a growing foreign trade deficit, rising gas prices, the housing market collapse, the near complete collapse of free market capitalism, and a disastrous foreign policy. The growth of government and the destruction of the Republican Party since 2006 should also give our friends on the other side of the aisle reason to be angry as well. But, after serious thought, I believe Americans should make lemonade out of lemons. Bush’s main failures in office could become some of Obama’s greatest achievements by the setting of precedents that strengthen the positions of future presidents to accomplish the harder policy changes. Whether intentional or not, George W. Bush has expanded the powers of government in almost every sector providing Barack Obama and other future presidents incredible leverage in the educational, financial, and national security apparatus to solve critical problems – I believe this is a good thing. I find it intersting how a Republican President who believes in the limitation of government has expanded government almost as much as Roosevelt’s New Deal or Johnson’s Great Society. Many, of course, will disagree with the analysis of using vast amounts of government resources to solve problems that may or may not have been created by the government in the first place. But, I imagine that the United States could not be in much more dire straits than it is right now with trillions of dollars in debt, questionable goals in foreign policy, an undefined education policy, a troubled immigration policy, the eventual destruction of social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and more than 300 million Americans fighting for jobs and resources. I believe we need a very big shovel to dig America out of the state she is in and Dubya has given Barack Obama the shovel he needs to get to work.

No Child Left Behind

Let’s begin with Education.

The state of America’s primary education is not good. Asian and European school curriculums cover a lot more territory than the average American school. Most Europeans speak more than one language and are better prepared for college than the average U.S. student. In large measure this is because most nations have a national education plan where students in any particular grade are on the same page nationwide. A national education system provides a structured environment paid for by the government. No Child Left Behind puts America on this path. Now, free education is not an inalienable right. However, it just makes sense for the government to provide free, structured education to its citizens. The U.S. public school system is free but far from structured. Local school districts make the rules depending upon the tax money they receive from the state and county governments. Curriculums are decided by the school districts and do not have to be uniform with other districts. Wealthier school districts have better curriculums and more programs to offer their students while poorer, inner city schools have less to offer and higher drop out rates – especially among minorities. The system is – by nature – unfair. No Child Left Behind attempts to correct this problem by giving the Federal government more control in placing guidelines and placing accountability standards in the schools by teaching the core subjects such as Math, Sciences, and English toward a standardized test. Thereby all children leaving a grade will know at least what every other child in that particular grade knows… in theory.

Briefly, NCLB (No Child Left Behind) rates schools according to the federal guidelines. Those schools that perform well receive funding, those schools that do not have a given time period to meet federal standards and improve performance; otherwise, the students of the failing school are allowed to transfer to a school that is performing well. Teachers, administrators, and faculty are also tested and are supposed to be held accountable for their performance as well. Now, there are problems with this plan structurally. How do we fund NCLB and what happens to failing schools? Since schools are mostly funded through state and local taxes, a huge increase in the federal budget is needed to provide schools with the funding needed to hire more teachers and ensure the success of NCLB. Americans should expect a significant increase in their federal taxes if the program is to be successful.

There are also significant problems facing NCLB even without proper funding. Failing schools that do not make the federal guidelines are downsized as students move to other schools. Therefore their budgets are downsized as well, leaving the remaining students with less than they need to succeed. Schools that excel under the federal guidelines see an increase in students, which means an increase in class size, which means that individual students get less and less help from good teachers because teaching time is being sucked up by more students who need more help. The student teacher ratio then becomes 35 to 1 and everyone suffers. Eventually, the excellent school can no longer meet the federal standards and the cycle repeats itself.

The current status of NCLB has opened the door for President Obama in that federal guidelines and accountability in teaching toward achievement in Math, English, and the Sciences has injected the federal government into the well-being of each child. There can now be a chance for significant funding from the federal government in the core areas of learning. The United States could move toward a hybrid education that mixes local and national models that interact for the educational development of the student. The idea is to have a national curriculum for grades 1 through 12 in Math, English, Science, and History while combining a curriculum chosen by the local school board that addresses non core subjects and languages. There are reasons why the United State’s early and mid level education is ranked below countries in Europe and Asia – although 17 of the top 20 colleges in the world are American. NCLB has problems that must be fixed but the fundamentals for its implementation are sound if only the funding were there. It is too early to see the real effects of this policy but within five years there will be enough data to make a fair assessment of the program. The bottom line is that even with the current issues NCLB creates; it addresses the major concerns of our education system: under-achievement of the public school system, fairness of education, and accountability. Eventually – hopefully with the guidance and funding from the Obama administration – No Child Left Behind will move America’s education system toward a national education system, with one set of curriculum guidelines, performance measures, and equal funding for all. George W. Bush has set a precedent for future presidential administrations to use the enormous power of the government to take an active interest in the education of its students. Bush has set America on this path and his education policy now – though flawed – will be better for America in the future.

Faith-Based Initiative

One of the early passions of George W. Bush was to create what has been called his “Faith-Based Initiative.” These initiatives were a series of executive orders that formed an office with federal funding promoting the involvement of churches in community issues such as job training, drug treatment and rehabilitation, prisoner re-entry, and afterschool programs. On the surface, it would seem that this would be a good thing but Congress had issues funding this new program because many viewed it as a blurring of the line between church and state which is why the initiative was created mainly by executive orders. The overall aims of this program were well-intentioned and I believe the government should take an active role in providing avenues for religious organizations to help with community issues. However, the faith based program became politically tainted as many in the West Wing began to see the initiative as a political end for votes rather than a means to heal society’s ills.  This is why the former director of the program, John Dilulio, resigned. Now, it is time for President Obama to re-engage with this initiative.

There are many who believe that President Obama is likely to keep the Faith-Based Initiative and retool it to meet community needs.  One of his objectives is that if federal grant money is given to an organization that organization cannot use the money to proselytize. The organization must use the funds for community issues. The Faith-Based Initiative – begun by Bush – could become a positive marker in the Obama administration if funding is distributed wisely and not used for political gain.

Homeland Security

Homeland Security is a mixed blessing. Originally the brainchild of Senator Joe Lieberman, the Department of Homeland Security is another cabinet appointed bureaucracy, which took other bureaucracies, and made one massive bureaucracy. It’s confusing but I’ll explain. Until 9/11, the FBI, CIA, ATF, FEMA, and a number of other acronyms were self-sustaining departments. After 9/11, the administration thought it would be a great idea to subsume all of the previously existing departments involved with U.S. security under one department. The ATF, FEMA, Coast Guard, immigration, and port authorities were all placed under Homeland Security while the FBI and CIA were exempt. (The heads of the FBI and CIA report directly to the President.) The idea was to have the heads of the formerly separate departments report directly to the head of Homeland Security, eliminating some red tape, consolidating intelligence, and providing one direct voice speaking to the President on homeland security matters. The problem with this structure became evident in the summer of 2005 when Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans catching the federal, state, and local authorities with their pants down. A good argument can be made that Mike Brown or affectionately referred to as “Brownie” by Dubya, who was head of FEMA and not up to the task. The chain of command between state and local officials, FEMA, Homeland Security, and the White House broke down. Everyone was at fault. Ray Nagin, mayor of the Big Easy, did not utilize all available city transportation to evacuate residents before the storm hit. Governor Kathleen Blanco refused permission for the Army National Guard to enter the city until two days after the storm. In the meantime, FEMA and White House officials seemed to be in a state of confusion as New Orleans residents slept on top of their houses and mayhem ruled the Superdome. There was a definite disconnect from what the President believed and the reality in the city street. “Brownie, you’re doin’ a heck of a job” became a media catchphrase the minute it left Bush’s lips. Granted, the death toll was not in the thousands and many of the most horrific stories reported in the media turned out to be false. Even so, minorities suffered disproportionately from the incompetence displayed at all levels of government. Some of the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina might have been averted if FEMA had remained a separate cabinet-level department. Regardless, Hurricane Katrina sucked the confidence and poll numbers out of the administration more than any other event in the Bush presidency. After Katrina, voters lost all confidence in George Bush to manage anything, including the Iraq war.

Good or bad, Homeland Security is here to stay. It is up to the Obama administration to streamline and make this department work because security is one of the top concerns of U.S. citizens. At the very least it is a good idea to have the ATF, Port Authorities, Immigration, and the Coat Guard report directly to a cabinet head since all three are connected by border security. Information and intelligence from these departments need to be gathered and dissected in a cohesive manner for one purpose: security. The lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina should simply be that the head of FEMA should once again become a cabinet-level position. To be sure, Barack Obama will use the massive bureaucracy of the Department of Homeland Security differently than the Bush administration, but eventually history will view its creation as a good event and a department Obama could wisely build even though it was Bush’s creation.

Social Security Reform

President Obama has a real chance to make significant change in the next eight years to the way Americans see Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. Once, of course, he fixes the current economic crisis. President Bush spent a huge amount of political capital to reform Social Security but to no avail. The third rail of politics will continue to consume the political capital of future presidents, but President Bush has furthered important dialogue in this particular debate: the issue of money. When FDR (Franklin Roosevelt) first envisioned Social Security in his New Deal, it was expected to serve relatively few Americans. If an American male was born between 1930 and 1940, it was then anticipated that he would live between 59 and 63 years of age. Roosevelt ensured that the Social Security retirement age was set to 65. You had to live beyond your life expectancy to collect retirement. Whether Roosevelt realized it or not, this was a good thing because the life expectancy would continue to grow and eventually Americans would live far beyond the age of 65. Now, in the new century, the older generation is dying out and the baby boomers are nearing retirement. In the next fifteen years, those born between 1945 and 1960 will retire, leaving a massive hole in the workforce while sucking up most of the Social Security benefits. Americans are living longer and there is a very real possibility that most retirees in the near future will collect Social Security for thirty years or more. As of now, Social Security will run out of money by 2050, leaving millions of workers born between 1960 and today with nothing. Now, how do you fix the problem? I simply do not know. We could raise the retirement age, work longer, cut benefits, or send the aged out onto small wooden rafts or icebergs into the ocean when they become useless. None of these options are appealing.

Bush attempted to tackle the Social Security problem the only way he knows how: head on and unilaterally. The President proposed keeping Social Security but letting those who pay into the program take a portion of their FICA taxes and invest this in the open financial market. Critics of this proposal claimed that Bush was trying to destroy Social Security. (This may or may not be true since Republicans tend to dislike government interfering in pocketbooks.) The President toured sixty cities in sixty days to promote his plan for Social Security and the more he talked, the more America hated the idea. Social Security became a losing issue and the White House eventually dumped the idea. But, the problem still remains: what will happen to Social Security when the money runs out. The President may have lost the battle but the war over Social Security is far from over. If Americans are not willing to make the hard choices – cutting benefits, raising the retirement age or work longer – then the younger work-force will need to take a serious look at the Bush proposal. The one serious problem with Bush’s Social Security plan is that if workers take a portion of their income and invest in the free market, then their retirement is subject to the gains and losses of their investment. Recently, the free-market system almost completely collapsed so it was probably a good thing that the Bush proposal did not see the reality of policy. Depending on how workers invest they could be rich, poor, or come out even, which is a retirement loss. Although Bush lost this battle, by drawing attention to the issue, he has made Social Security easier for the Obama administrations to deal with, which is a good thing. Besides the mammoth task of getting the economy rolling again the most pressing future issues will be Social Security, job restructuring, Medicaid, and Medicare. These will take years of development and is probably too big a problem for one administration to handle. But hopefully Barack Obama may find beginning to fix the problem slightly easier even as he prepares Americans for hard times and sacrifice in the coming years.

Immigration

One of the few policy issues George Bush was right on from the beginning was immigration. President Bush was and is right on immigration and the Republicans who sank his proposed reforms should be ashamed. Conservative Senators such as John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman teamed up with liberal Senators like Ted Kennedy and Diane Feinstein to pass a comprehensive bill that would protect the United States’s southern border while providing an effective path for productive illegal immigrants to become U.S. citizens. Most detractors of the failed immigration bill simply did not want the Latino population to increase in the United States, which is bigotry. Latinos are the fastest growing population within the U.S. and there are an estimated fifteen to thirty million who are illegal residents.

Now, conservatives who oppose the immigration plan will argue that it is against the law to come into this country without a passport or visa, that national security is at risk because terrorist could just as easily pass through our porous southern border, and that illegal immigrants take American jobs. It is true that illegal immigrants who travel through Latin America into the United States are, by definition, illegal. Also, our nation is in serious need of a comprehensive border protection policy. But, this does not mean setting up a virtual border fence or even a wall dividing Mexico from the sweet land of liberty is the right policy. The U.S. needs a special security force with the sole intention of guarding fifteen hundred miles of southern border with special powers to deport offenders. This is the only sensible solution and it would strengthen our national security.

Illegal immigrants pour across the U.S. border for one reason: economic. Immigrants want to work here in the United States to either one day become citizens or to send money back to their families in poorer nations. The United States is blessed with almost infinite amounts of wealth – even in hard times – and everyone wants a slice of the American dream. How do we handle this problem humanely? Cultural conservatives would argue that the U.S. should immediately deport illegal immigrants and then fine employers who hire them. I would argue that this is a bad idea. The immigrants who are here have provided a great service for this country. They take the jobs most Americans would not take. American culture, especially for its youth, is defined by sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, and living beyond its means. You will not find most American adults or teenagers picking fruit, shingling roofs, or making hotel beds for a living. That kind of work is beneath their style of living and would take valuable time away from the Xbox and reality television. What I’m saying is that immigrants provide a valuable service. Employers hire immigrants to shingle roofs because they are willing to work for less than the average American union worker – passing more profits onto the employer and more savings into the customer’s bank account. If the U.S. were to fine employers who hire these immigrants than the cost of fruit would rise dramatically in the grocery stores. Actually, the cost in the food industry in general would rise. I don’t think Americans want to pay more for their oranges on top of three-dollar gas. (Yes, gas will rise again in the future… be prepared.)

Deportation is a bad idea as well. The United States is made up of three kinds of law enforcement: local, state, and federal. Local and state law enforcement officers work and sacrifice themselves to protect you from rapists, thieves, and murderers. They are not there to protect you from Juan Carlos working in the back room of your local pub for a few dollars an hour. Federal law enforcement is split into many sections. The U.S. Marshals, the FBI, and the ATF are busy catching serial killers, terrorists, and generally protecting you from really bad people. Can you imagine the amount of manpower that it would take to round up thirty million immigrants? Take the cost of deportation for each illegal immigrant, add the hiring of thousands of new law enforcement officers per each state, times the worker shortage in the construction and food industry, plus the rising cost of groceries, and we may have an idea of what it will cost to solve the immigration problem unwisely. It would probably cost at least 20 billion dollars per state. The taxes to pay for this program would be astronomical and no American would be willing to pay for it. I am, of course, speaking of illegal immigrants who contribute to American society and make a concerted decision to assimilate. Immigrants who contribute to lawlessness or gangs should be punished by our laws and then placed in prison or deported – end of story.

Immigration is one of the few policy issues President Bush wisely attached himself and he should be applauded for his courageous stand against the bigotry of his party. Bush had a sound plan for the illegal immigrants who are established here in America. The U.S. should let illegals pay a fine for coming into this country without permission, then get into the back of the line for legal immigrant status and citizenship. Immigrants would be required to learn the English language in order to assimilate into the culture, and there would be a guest worker status that would allow immigrants to work in the U.S. for a limited amount of time and then return to their home country. Those immigrants who have children in the United States should be able to stay and raise their children who are U.S. citizens. This is the only right and humane path to follow as we seal our southern border with increased security patrols to make sure immigrants follow the legal path to come into the country and for citizenship. The Bush plan on illegal immigration has hopefully made the issue easier for Obama. Immigration was one of the few issues that Obama, McCain, and Bush actually agreed upon. Illegal immigrants are breaking the law by coming into this country without permission and it must be stopped. But, we as a country need a plan and policy that makes economic and moral sense, not half-baked ideas based on bigotry and fear.

The Global War on Terror, The Patriot Act, and National Defense

Foreign policy is the one area that the Obama administration has sharply different opinions than the Bush administration and will have an immediate impact on the way America is perceived. The world let out a collective sigh of relief when Barack Obama won the presidency and many Americans felt a new and more hopeful beginning in world relations. Although foreign policy was the bane of George W. Bush, the precedents set in place by his administration could drastically help Obama reshape America’s policy and image.

Other than Hurricane Katrina, the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq have drained Bush’s popularity the most. September the 11th 2001 was perhaps the most tragic, horrific day in America’s recent history. Like any president, Bush felt the pressure of being under attack from an enemy entity. NATO was called into action as the United States, Canada, and most European nations moved into Afghanistan, expelled the Taliban, almost destroyed al Qaeda in the Tora Bora Mountains, and set up a new government. From start to finish, it took less than six months. The U.S. cut off terrorist funding worldwide, hunted down Khalid Sheik Mohammad (mastermind of the 9/11 attacks), and generally had unanimous domestic and global support in destroying terrorist networks worldwide. Then, the administration got greedy. They simply bit off more foreign policy than they could chew in the form of Iraq.

Now, I am not going to defend the war, nor say it was a bad idea. The President and supporters of the war will argue that Saddam Hussein was an incredibly evil man, that he had committed numerous atrocities against his own people, he violated human rights, was a dictator, he gave the order to invade Kuwait, supported terrorism worldwide, and let his troops rape and butcher its citizens. This is true. Saddam also used chemical and biological weapons against the Iranians in the 1980s and then used them against Iraqi Kurds in the al Anfa campaign. Saddam also had a nuclear program until the Israelis blew it up in the early 1980s. In the late 1990s, Saddam Hussein attempted to cover up his illegal weapons from the UN inspectors prompting President Clinton to bomb Baghdad.

Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi government were clearly at one time a threat to American interest. The question is: how much of one?

I believe President Bush was convinced by his vice-president and other advisers that Iraq was an easy target. No one liked Saddam Hussein. Saddam was evil and antagonistic. The President believed that regime change in Iraq would be easy and that he would be the man to foment democracy in the Middle East. Bush went to the U.S. Congress and got his authorization. Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and many other liberal Senators voted for war with Iraq based upon the intelligence the White House presented and the mood of the country at the time – over 60% of the country was for the Iraqi invasion at the time. History will conclude whether Congress was misled on bad intelligence or whether the Executive office simply lied to everyone. It is quite possible that those who advised the President and possibly the President himself knew they needed another bigger target after Afghanistan and they logically picked their old nemesis Saddam Hussein. There is some question as to whether the administration cherry-picked the intelligence the neoconservatives wanted to see but the facts are that the intelligence was real but dead wrong. History may well conclude that the Bush administration then rushed to war. There is a case to be made that the U.S. should not have gone into Iraq without waiting for the UN inspectors to finish their inspections and there is certainly a case to be made that the Iraq war was mismanaged from the beginning by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and those close to Vice-President Cheney. I would like to remind the reader that in early 2003, polls showed over 60% support for the war in Iraq and Congress gave the President authorization – Republicans and Democrats. Sink or swim, it was America’s war, and in hindsight, it was a huge mistake.

Iraq has cost the U.S. thousands of lives, countless American treasure, and support from its traditional allies. The United States has almost lost its soul in this war as well. The atrocities committed at Abu Ghraib – although committed by a few “bad apples” in the military – still reflect badly upon the United States and its people. The issues surrounding the terrorists captured and sent to Guantanamo Bay do not reflect positively on U.S. justice either. I have no sympathy for terrorists but even in a military tribunal they cannot be held indefinitely without counsel. The United States government was and is built on the rule of law and basic, inalienable human rights. One of those is the right to counsel. I’m not advocating voting rights for Khalid Sheik Mohammad but I am saying that in keeping with American values, we owe it to ourselves to at least give the semblance of law and justice. If found guilty – which they would be – then deal out their due punishment. But let it not be said that America was unfair in dealing with any human being.

In short, we have really screwed up this war on terror thing. The Islamic world, which has never really been friendly towards U.S. affairs, is now on the defensive, the Persian Empire is making a comeback in the form of Ahmadinijad’s Iran, and despite the recent gains and positive signs in the conflict, Iraq continues to be dangerous with the threat of civil war between Shia and Sunni Muslims.

Now, for the positive:

Barack Obama will hopefully use the chaos the international community is in to foster a lasting peace. The United States and Britain have been the only governments willing to take a real stand on terrorism and President Obama can use this to America’s advantage by using soft multilateral power as the leading country in prosecuting terror. Although there is significant disagreement in the way the two administrations will prosecute its war on terror the goal is essentially the same: extremist who foster fear and promote an agenda to destroy government are terrorist and must be eliminated. President Obama will close Guantanamo within a year and move through the messy legal issues surrounding detainees but his goal of eliminating terrorist is essentially the same as Bush. President Obama understands the true nature of this war and its consequences. There is no army in the world as well trained and equipped to handle conflict as the United States military. America is the only country with the ships, the guns, and the power to intervene on the world stage. Europe cannot and will not save itself. The African Union cannot save the people of Darfur or rebuild Somalia. Only the United States can fight this war against extremism.  At the moment, the world understands that even if they disagree with the policy, America is the one country that is essential to world peace.

President Obama, at his first addres to the nation, warned that those who seek the destruction of the U.S. that we – as Americans – will not apologize for our values. Extremists in the Islamic faith like Osama bin Laden, Khalid Sheik Mohammad, Ahmadinijad – or anyone else who claims that taking life or committing suicide is the will of God or Allah – are enemies of the world and need to be dealt with accordingly. They advocate total surrender to sharia law and the will of Allah (according to their interpretation) or death by the sword. Osama and those of his ilk are on a quest to see the governments of this world bow to their view and interpretation of Islam. The extremist view of this world is delusional and un-Islamic. With their terrorist attacks on Western governments and culture they have opened an unending cultural and religious war that leaves little room for compromise. One of the consequences of this war is that good Muslims who obey and live by the commandments of Allah have been unfairly labeled by Western society. Tragically, they and the true faith of Islam are casualties of this conflict. I believe Barack Obama understands the true nature of the conflict the U.S. is in.

One of the most controversial tools the Bush administration has used to fight the war on terrorism is the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act was passed in the aftermath of 9/11 and basically took the reigns off of law enforcement to prosecute the war. Law enforcement and nearly every other U.S. government agency was drafted into the war on terror, chasing down intelligence leads, seizing terrorist funds, and enhancing surveillance. The Patriot Act could be the Bush administration’s greatest achievement and its greatest failure. The new laws incorporated in the Patriot Act set precedents that could be grossly, even dictatorially misused. The role of the federal government – and especially that of the executive branch – has been strengthened to such an extent that it is now hard for the judiciary to prosecute misuse. New surveillance laws allow the government to listen to private phone conversations without court authorization, parameters for classifying terrorist threats are vague, and borders for law enforcement are sometimes in question. At the moment, the government has surveillance on all phone calls coming into the United States from Islamic countries and on Muslims here in America – including American citizens. America has not been successfully attacked by Muslim extremists since 9/11, so one might conclude that the Patriot Act and its provisions have worked effectively. But, the provisions provided in the Act must be used carefully. The Patriot Act could set a dangerous precedent for future administrations and it is incumbent on President Obama to use the powers Bush has ceded to him wisely. It will become very tempting to ignore FISA laws and use the tools provided to fight terrorism against American citizens. But, in the larger scheme of things, a president who uses these powers wisely will protect American citizens.

Conclusion

There are now three hundred million people living in the United States. America faces an uncertain future in its economy, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security insolvency, education, security, and foreign policy. There are now six billion people in the world, a figure likely to rise to nine billion within the next half-century. Conflicts are most assured. Immigration is going to be a problem for many years to come. Education will cost more as jobs will continue to pay less. Short of the return of Jesus Christ, we as Americans have real problems that need to be fixed. Now that the election is over, all Americans have to unite – Liberal and Conservative, Republicans and Democrats, cats and dogs, Red Socks and Yankees, Cowboys and Redskins. This country will feel the unwise policies of the past few years for some time to come but it helps no one to focus on George W Bush now. It is time to work to secure a better future by learning from mistakes and trying to improve and form a “more perfect Union.” Some may disagree but I sincerely believe that the greatest gift the failed presedency of George W. Bush has given to America and future presidents is the gift of precedent. Bush will deservedly take the hard knocks and low poll numbers now but he may have left Barack Obama the political cover and tools to make the hard decisions easier.