Political Diatribe: I am not a Bush basher, nor am I his biggest fan. I wish that he displayed some of the qualities that could make me be a fan, but I am becoming a little disheartened by the leadership that I have seen in the White house for the past 14 years. In fact, I want to see a real leader emerge and take the stage.

Let me set the stage, I am a Republican. I have always voted Republican in the national elections since I was first allowed to vote, and that was the election for Ronald Reagan, someone I still consider the best president in my life time.

But I really haven’t had a lot to select from:

• John F. Kennedy: Shot shortly after I was born, his politics were troubling. He was dynamic, charismatic, and probably a philanderer.
• Lydon Johnson: Well he gave us Social Security and got us into Vietnam. Thank goodness he didn’t see a second term!
• Richard Nixon: Good, his work with China, bad – Watergate.
• Gerald Ford: He was a ridiculous choice for VP, and he proved it as president. Yuck!
• Jimmy Carter: The man could smile, but had no clue how to manage. Now that he is out of office he is traveling the globe telling the world how evil America is (the Gore/Clinton traveling roadshow)
• Ronald Reagan. A great leader, orator, and leader. His detractors will point to his last years when his Alzheimer’s started kicking in, but I still think that he was a great leader.
• George HW Bush: Nice guy, easily forgotten. Iran Contra Scandal is the only thing that comes to mind except the first gulf war.
• Bill Clinton: I still hold that Clinton will go down in history as the most memorable president in history, but not necessarily in a good way. There were 7 women who claimed to have been molested by Clinton, and of course the most blatant was that after the first charges came out he blamed it on the Republican’s as a conspiracy.
• George W. Bush: If his presidency were to end today it would cover the spiraling cost of fuel, Gulf War II (and our inability to end it), out of control spending, and probably warrantless detentions (although several other presidents allowed for this, but none ever did it to this degree).

But today, as I read the FEMA report on Katrina, I see that we have poor leadership in our government and have for many years. While I totally disagree with his social politics (pro-abortion) , I would love to see Rudy as a president, or at the very least the head of FEMA or Homeland Security. The man is a planner. We need that. Because whether we like to admit it or not, 9/11 was just the beginning for us in America. Now that Iran can make their own nukes, it is just a matter of time.