Today, for the first time, i sat and looked at a picture of our president with a tear running down his face.
It made me feel a connection to the man i had never felt. I felt he was human, I felt I could now understand him on a different level then before. For a moment I saw how he and I are the same.
Every since President bush hit the national scene I have always thought of him as being an oddity. His life and my own share little in common. He had a privileged upbringing, I was middle class at best. He was a texan and proud of it, i am an liberal oregonian. He likes baseball, i deplore it.
For the last 6 years his policy choices, his governance style, everything he did was so opposed to my values and beliefs that i had a hard time understanding why he made those choices. Sure i could understand the man on an intellectual level. I understood the politics of an "Ownership society", i understand the neo-conservative foreign policy. But i couldn't understand him as a human being.
Today, I feel, I understand. I feel for the man i really do. He is just like everyone else. He has a vision, he wants to do the best, but for some reason nothing ever ends up as you want it to.
I think we will remember his presidency much like we remember his life before he got into politics. He was a person that was given some of the best opportunities you could ever have, but for some reason never made the difference i think he wanted to make.
He grew up with privilege, was given the best education money could buy. In the end he was a failed business man with a substance abuse problem.
He started his presidency with a budget surplus so big, no one knew what to do with it. After 9/11 he had the whole world on his side. He will end his presidency with a budget deficit, and America being hated like never before.
Like bush, i think many of us have squandered the opportunities we were given. Sure not on the same scale, but still we can see many lost opportunities.
ALl of us can remember a point where we did what we thought was right, and ended up with a tear in our eye.
I feel like this has taught me something about humanity, the human experience. I can't exactly put my finger on what i have learned, but i know that i will try not to waste the opportunities i am given every again.
