Poll: Americans are Hopeful About Bush’s Second Term

Of course Americans are hopeful about George Bush’s second term. After the cataclysmic events of his first term, things can only get better. Under the president’s first term, we endured a devastating attack by the Middle Eastern version of the Ku Klux Klan, an economy that (if the mainstream media is to be believed), tanked on a scale not seen since the Hoover administration, a foreign misadventure in a land where drinking and fraternizing with the opposite sex were more dangerous than combat itself and an aquatic apocalypse that sent tourists running from red light bars to Red Cross cars everywhere from Jakarta to Mogadishu. Through it all however, the US is still standing and, relatively speaking, standing pretty proud.

I am not saying that George Bush has not made mistakes. He has, but in the end, things are rolling along fairly well considering the circumstances. Al Qaeda has been hard pressed to terrorize anything outside of lonely sheep herders strolling around the Tora Boran mountainsides. The economy is improving, albeit very modestly, though when one considers the magnitude of the events occurring around the world these days, any improvement at all is a laudable success. The Iraq War, though the press loves to define it as a contemporary Vietnam, is a statistical success with a casualty rate that is spectacularly low given the size of the operation taking place there (though even I have to admit that “statistical success” means absolutely nothing if you or a loved one is among the casualties). As for the Indian Ocean catastrophe, in spite of the incomprehensible cataclysm that occurred there, the US government, an entity widely reviled in that part of the world, has stepped up to the plate with its troops among the first on the ground to help to try and rebuild the shattered seaside settlements that have endured such an unfathomable tragedy. George Bush, whether he is liked or not, IS doing the job. He is succeeding, and doing so despite the ill will of deranged religious zealots, a corrupt world body with the intestinal fortitude of a chronic Bulemic with terminal Crohn’s Disease, frustrated Gallic politicians mortified by their deteriorating relevance in international affairs, Mother Nature and just under 50% of the American voting public. Under such circumstances, he should have a presidential success rate on par with the Carter administration’s.

So, in deference to the impending initiation of George Bush’s second term in office, I raise my glass and offer a toast:

“Here’s to the president, a helluva pal,
He’s pursued the al-Qaeda from New York to Nepal,
He’s toppled dictatorships, annoyed all of France,
And he’s scared charging rhinos by dropping his pants!”

Bottom’s Up!