The Mandate of the People

President George W. Bush, having been issued a mandate by the people of the United States to bring freedom and democracy to the world and to continue to competently function as the Commander in Chief of the military, is using his political capital to institute a regime of Faith Based Initiatives that are unconstitutional and tear at the very fabric of freedom and democracy in America. The precedent was set long ago that would set the American citizenry on a course to make the Presidential election of 2004 about the war in Iraq; present-day American voters followed in the footstep of hundreds of millions of previous voters by re-electing their "war-time President". George Washington was the first to be re-elected during war time and not a single president since has lost a re-election campaign while his nation's sons and daughters were in combat. The expansive agenda of this president, who won the office by the narrowest of margins, is not indicative of the sentiments of the American people. George W. Bush wants to put in place legislation that fundamentally undermines the ideals on which this nation was founded. While he sends our citizens overseas to bring western ideals to non-democratic nations, the President has stated a desire to institute programs and laws in this country which will ultimately restrict American freedom and pull at the underpinnings of this democracy.

America's voting trends suggest that they are willing to sacrifice the possibility of a change for the better if they feel that their current leadership is anything other than abhorrent. Presidents throughout history (George Washington, James Madison, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, etc) are a clear precedent for the re-election of an incumbent president during war-time. The American people issue their current Command in Chief a mandate, insisting that he continue with his leadership of troops on foreign soil in such a manner that will bring them home safely as soon as possible as well as accomplish the mission which he set out to do. In the case of President George W. Bush, his narrow margin of victory speaks to the fact that he hasn't earned a mandate from the people to do much of anything else.