Ever since Barack Obama became president, I've tried to think about George W. Bush as little as possible.
After all, no one wants to think about bad memories. For the same reason that Bills fans might try to repress the first eight games of the 2010 season, I've tried to push the 43rd president as far out of my head as possible.
Unfortunately, some things can't be avoided forever, and the junior Bush president is one of them. With his memoirs about to be released, everyone is talking about Bush again. Specifically, whether or not he was such a bad president.
I'll spare you some time: yes.
Even before Bush wrote his memoirs, people were trotting out the idea that Bush's presidency was better than it was given credit for. As far back as summer 2009, billboards of Bush featuring the slogan "Miss Me Yet?" were appearing throughout the country.
Suffice it to say, anyone who misses Bush is suffering from a severe case of memory loss.
Perhaps after two years of yelling at Obama for not being able to fix everything quickly enough, we've forgotten about the man who got us into this mess. The vast majority of problems that Obama is dealing with were started by the Bush administration.
So, why are people starting to view the Bush years in such a kinder light? Quite simply, it's because people love to take shots at whoever's in charge regardless of whether that person deserves it or not.
The idea is simple: Obama is president and America is going through hard times, so therefore Obama must be a bad president. Unfortunately, this is terribly short-sighted logic. The simple fact is, Bush created the vast majority of the problems that Obama is being raked over the coals for not solving quickly enough. Bush deserves the majority of the blame.
Despite all this, I am looking forward to reading Bush's memoirs. See, I'm not one of those people who think that George W. Bush is or was evil. He was just a bad president. I don't doubt for a second that the guy meant well, but it always seemed like he was in over his head.
As a result, I think his memoirs could be very illuminating. They could let us know what was going through his head during some of his most embarrassing moments. What was he thinking during Katrina? What was running through his head when he read My Pet Goat on 9/11? These are things America should know.
There have already been a few interesting revelations. Bush seriously considered dropping Cheney from the 2004 ticket, and when Kanye West said he didn't care about black people, he considered it to be the low point of his administration.
This has already changed my view of Bush. It made me realize that he was very insecure about being in charge, and he cared a lot about how the American public perceived him. He wasn't quite the cowboy he made himself out to be.
If his book is full of revelations like this, it could make me see him in an entirely different light. Perhaps I'd look at him as a poor, misunderstood soul instead of the man who ran America into the ground for eight years.
With that said, he is to blame for America's current predicament, and no book can change that.
E-mail: john.hugar@ubspectrum.com
