I've heard numerous times since being on campus that Bowdoin students have their plates full. Obviously filled with great eats, but more so with activities and clubs and sports and groups and meetings. While we, at Bowdoin, adapt and learn how to balance our schedules and agendas and conflicts, it seems as if there is a significant population of Americans who are having severe difficulty working out their agendas. Unfortunately, those Americans happen to be running our country.
As I have only been on this earth for 18 years, I have only been alive for four different presidencies. Since I wasn't quite old enough to appreciate or dislike the actions of the first two, I started to mold my political views under the third, and now, my views are being sculpted by the inefficient, misguided leadership of President Bush. Every day when I walk into Moulton, I am hesitant to pick up a copy of Boston Globe because I am nervous as to what will show up on the front page. Every day there is something new, something frustrating.
It appears to me that our president simply has too much on his plate. He has been so inefficient in deciding his battles, that at this point in his presidency all of those matters are blowing up in his face, like the levees which burst in New Orleans.
Bush's presidency thus far has been defined by his moves regarding international relations and overseas matters?terrorism, the war in Iraq, installing a new government in Iraq, gas and oil prices, North Korean and Iranian nuclear weapons potential, and the Israeli/Arab peace conflict.
While these issues are certainly severely important, this has resulted in a lack of attention to our own policies and troubles?education, social security, Medicare, welfare, a widening gap between political parties, and now the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
What is saddening to me is that I believe this country needed something like Katrina to remind President Bush that he is the leader of the world's foremost super power. His delayed response time could have simply been due to fact that he has forgotten how to deal with issues on his own turf because he has neglected them for so long.
With the help of Katrina, it is now evident that poverty and malnutrition are real problems on our own soil, not just in far off lands. And to fix the problems, our president's solution is money: throw more money into Iraq (increase the deficit), throw more money at schools that pass the tests (increase the deficit), throw money onto the flooded streets of New Orleans (increase the deficit)?money will do.
It is not the quantity, Mr. President, of money that is thrown around, but the quality of the existing programs that utilize this fiscal support. In this time of homeland turbulence, judicial turnover, and policy change, we need our leaders focused on our issues. And while the president is doling out the dollars, pretty soon, he'll be out of lunch money, and won't have the means to fill up his tray.