"Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy"--F. Scott Fitzgerald





January 20th, 2009





The Honorable George Walker Bush
President of the United States of America
43 Prairie Chapel Ranch
Crawford, Texas 76638





Dear Mr. President





Welcome home, sir. I hope that as these next few months roll by you can turn back the clock, past the awful burdens you have shouldered for the last eight years. I hope that you can forget he vitriol, the unhinged rage, and out-and-out fabrication hurled at you without ending by deranged private citizen and "impartial journalist" alike. Who knows, you may even see some of the black spring back amongst all those grey hairs.



You restored honor to an office that had been diminished by your predecessor, and governed fairly and with conviction at every turn. Few of your decisions have been easy, and fewer still were given the benefit of the doubt by those screeching harridans in constant opposition to you.



In my opinion you spent far too much money, growing a bloated, ineffective government that you should have been dismantling. Your natural compassion also drove you to ignore rule of law in favor of a reckless immigration policy.



However, I am that rare person who does not expect to agree with everything my President does, everything he says, or every stand he takes. Instead, I can take comfort and pride in the fact that my President acted with honor, in a steadfast and forthright fashion. You are a man of principle and conviction, and you have my undying gratitude.



I wish you had fought some of those who constantly attacked you, refuted at least some of the ludicrous accusations hurled endlessly at your office. I would have loved to see you point out the hundreds of tons of yellowcake uranium that were found in Iraq, or question the efficacy of an investigation into the outing of a covert CIA operative who was not actually covert, an investigation that continued on even after the leaker identified himself and was found to be from outside the White House. Even at the beginning, I wish you could have taken a moment to remind people that Al Gore was suing in Florida not just to have the votes in three counties recounted, but also suing to STOP the legally-mandated recount of all of the rest of the counties in the state [the three counties the Vice President was so interested in were overwhelmingly democrat, while the rest of the state is apparently solidly republican].



I wish more Americans could have seen the real you in public--the eloquent, earnest speaker with a great sense of humor. A less biased media might have remarked on your love of reading, specifically your fascination with world and American history. I wish your magnetism in front of four, forty, or four hundred would have translated to forty million.



I am heartbroken that the thirty years of legislative corruption and ineptitude that started with Jimmy Carter finally came to a head and burst, like a pus-filled boil, in the last year of your administration. The fact that decades of lax regulation, ridiculous laws, and bad loans will be made out, by the media, to look like your fault is criminal; that those truly most responsible will, rather than being blamed, instead be handed a checkbook and asked to fix it is indicative of the huge problems that face us.



I wish you peace and contentment as you leave office. I also wish that you live long enough to be appreciated for all you have done. I have no doubt that millions of us owe you, and those you have so honorably commanded, our lives. I can't say that you're nomination, election, or re-election "sent a tingle down my leg", but I remain proud to have seen you come and sad to see you go.



God bless you and your family.