America is Not Bush's Sandbox
April 11, 2002
By Madison

America is not Bush's private supermarket to take from, whenever he feels the need.

If you think about it, George W. Bush seems to have an idea that, somehow, he was entitled to be president. Maybe because his father had been president. Not a particularly good president, but he had been one.

George W. Bush had grown up with a sort of distorted sense of privilege. No, not the kind of privilege that comes with money; he had that kind of privilege. But, I mean the sort of privilege that comes with "being born to it"!

Now that strikes our democracy-loving hearts as nuts; but, peculiarly, it did not seem to strike his crimped heart that such a notion was peculiar in America. Probably because he always did seem to get whatever he wanted, and to have powerful people cover for him whenever and wherever he did wrong.

Which was often.

So, when it was "close" in Florida, it did not strike GWBush that there was anything peculiar about using whatever nefarious means were necessary to "win" the White House. It was his, he thought; and he had a "right" to keep usurpers out.

Once in the White House, Bush began playing with America as if it belonged to him, as if it was his sandbox to play in. He could decide who could play with him, and who had to be sent away. America was HIS!

If America was his, then anything in it was his: the natural resources, the breathable air, the drinkable water, the money wherever he could lay his hands on it, the laws, the very Constitution that was the foundation of our democracy. All his. To do with whatever he chose.

If he saw money in the Social Security fund that he thought he could buy "friends" with, he felt free to raid that Social Security fund. After all, it was his.

If he thought he could gain more support for staying in power longer by giving away, to his campaign contributors, drilling, mining and logging rights in our national parks, he felt free to do that. The National parks were his national parks.

If he felt like some people needed more severe police "attention," he trusted his "Justice" Dept. to round them up. Oh, and, yes, he even referred to it as his Justice Dept. in case we should get confused and think it was our Justice Dept.

If he thought our Constitution was a meddlesome burden impeding his desires to reward old friends or buy new friends, he just ignored the Constitution and had his Justice Dept. write new rules for us. After all, he thought, it is his America, his Constitution, his Justice Dept., his national parks, his treasury, his money - all his.

Someone needs to explain to him that this is our America, our Constitution, our national parks, our treasury, our Social Security fund, our money. It is not his to give away, to shred, to take.

America is not George W. Bush's private supermarket, where he can take off the shelves whatever he thinks he needs, without paying out of his own pocket. Our money is not his money.

America is not his sandbox. America is OUR country. And we need to remember that.