There are some things on that list that I could care less about. Really. There are lots of spoiled rich kids who have parents with connections that get things handed to them that other either have to work for or will never, ever get, be they degrees or connections or businesses or jobs. That's called luck, no more no less. Some folks are born with silver spoons in their mouths, others with normal flatware, some folks without any eating utensils (or even enough to eat) at all. To my mind, why that is so is more worth thinking about than why some people end up with an inordinate share of the breaks. It's an odd culture that attributes respect to luck, don't you think?
And hey, I have also no trouble with draft dodgers, for example, being one myself, but in light of my situation at that time and place, I had to volunteer for military service in order to avoid going to Vietnam, but unlike Mr. Bush, I was there the whole time, did my tour of duty and have an unblemished record to show for it, for whatever that's worth. I'm not one of those proud, honor-me vets: I didn't want to be there, I didn't particularly enjoy how I got there, so I sucked it up, did what I had to and put it behind me. I don't consider his absences from duty a black mark per sé, but it is a clearly identifiable smudge. It does say something about one's integrity, especially when you consider how you handle it later.
What's more, it doesn't bother me that he was pretty much a failure as a businessman. Oh sure, he was playing in a different league than I ever did, but I never had his connections. If you know the right people, even if you don't quite manage to be successful in running the business, you can always make up for it when you get out. Again, it's also a matter of luck, not just skill, but when you can't do anything else, I suppose you sooner or realize that you can get into politics.
Whether the man was an honorable governor of Texas is for others to decide. I will make no bones about the fact that I find the death penalty reprehensible; always have, and that there's even still a discussion about it in the 21st century simply boggles my mind. As much as I have a problem with the death penalty itself, I have a particular problem with people who wear their religion on their sleeve and advocate it as well. Killing someone on average every nine days is a bit much for me, but, hey, I'm a wimp and I would like to sleep at night. My conscience would have a problem with that, but apparently not everyone does. If there is anything in my feelings about Mr. Bush that we could chalk up as purely personal, then I suppose this is it.
We apparently have very different understandings of what is means to be Christian, and as long as there are Bush-like individuals parading around taking the limelight on that, I'll just stay where I am, in the background, and respectfully decline being included in that particular club.
We should keep in mind, however, that be it how you get to college, whether you acknowledge the breaks Luck offered you, whether you fulfilled your patriotic obligations to your country or how you act while in a public office, there are a good number of people who have sound enough reasons to question whether Bush's actions qualify as honorable. To me, they're secondary. None of us is as consistent in the smaller things in life and I think most of us would agree, it is the big things that matter most. So what about Bush and big things?
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