I remember seeing the bumper stickers right when we went to war: “Impeach Bush.” I got invited to sign several petitions online from friends and family. Americans in Southern California did not meet the Iraq war with open arms. SNL started to poke fun of him monthly. Four years later, weak attempts to knock President Bush out of office have failed. Today, Californians are still making it a priority to impeach our current president. It might be too late.
On March 28, the topic came up when Congressman Brad Sherman spoke at a town hall meeting at Reseda High School, who seemed wary on responding to questions about his stance on impeachment. The problem is that it would be hard to get a majority to agree to impeach him.
If we wanted to impeach Bush, it should have happened years ago. Now, thousands of soldiers have died and our country’s economy has slumped. There will be no change if they got impeached now, months before the presidential election. America is too focused on who is endorsing Obama, Clinton or McCain to pay any attention to our current president finishing out his last term.
It is obvious that President Bush has made many poor decisions in the past, but it is too late to fix those problems now. All we can do is hope that whoever takes the vote in November can start by scratch and help America improve.
We cannot jump the gun on fixing America. If Bush were to be impeached now, what would change? We would get a replacement for 6 months. It may be worse to have a president for a short period of time before another president is elected.
President Bush makes sure he has plenty of appearances with the top leaders of our world, but he forgets to focus on the issues Americans care about most. When gas prices flew to $4 a gallon, Bush was quoted as not knowing of this increase. The fact that he does not pay for gas is obviously a factor here, but most importantly, he did not make it a point to become informed about an issue that plagues many Americans.
Another issue that Bush is often left in the dust about is the economy. Though he has the education that would seem to make him qualified to keep our economy afloat, there are daily stories in every newspaper about housing loses. This is an issue that affects every class, including the wealthy.
Bush seems to instead be focused on international issues, which are important, but leave our country stranded. Yesterday, Bush said that he was calling for a free trade agreement with Colombia, which he thinks will only strengthen our international relations and economic woes. Yet, companies would transfer their work to Colombia, which might hurt the U.S. The push for Congress to vote on this issue comes after reports that Bush is uninvolved and “out of touch” as a leader. Liberals are opposed to this issue, including presidential candidates Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton. It does not seem that putting involvement in international issues and connections is helping Bush make any sort of a comeback.
Only 25 percent of Americans approve Bush’s role in our economy, reported The New York Times last week. It seems that in the end of his term, he has given up on performing his job 100 percent, letting other people, like Henry M. Paulson, do the majority of the work for him.
In fact, Bush is so unpopular that even Republicans no longer follow him. His endorsement of John McCain hurt the current Republican nominee’s campaign. The image of Bush is often likened to war, a slumping economy and high gas prices.
However, the fact is that Bush is our current president. The past 4 years of “impeach Bush” merchandise did not make a dent towards getting him kicked out of the White House. It is better for Americans to deal with the fact that he is going to finish out his term than try to impeach him right before a new president is elected.
The majority of Americans has accepted this fact and is strongly campaigning for their candidate of choice. The good thing about having an arguably weak leader is that it encourages more people to get involved in the next election.
We have never had so many young voters interested in a presidential election. It is also rare that we have two strong democratic candidates in April.
Americans, even though they have good intentions, should not be focused on impeaching Bush this late in the game. We should focus on issues that we want to tackle when the next president is elected. I hope we pick someone who is up for that job.
