President Bush

For me, one of the most poignant moments of last night's debate came when Senator McCain said "Mr. Obama, I am not George Bush. . ." To speak honestly, it made me a little sad. You see, somewhere beneath the rubble of all the campaign rhetoric lies our current President. He often emerges when the opposing party wants to make a point on how bad things are for our country and he never is able to show his face in support of his party's candidate. Because of his unpopularity, his own party understandably seldom mentions him as they push to maintain the White House. However, the left brings him up at every possible opportunity, almost as a beacon of national disgrace.

I'm sorry for this. Actually, it grieves me. You see, I believe that like all of humanity, he has made his share of mistakes. I think he fumbled the ball on the fifty yard line with the Iraqi war and admittedly erred in some other areas of his ministry, but sadly, I don't think he'll be given the credit for all he has done for this nation until far down the pages of history. (I won't even get into the fact that he's taken the brunt of the blame for the financial disaster, when, of course, there are many others who are equally, if not more, at fault, including the Democratic Congress.) And sadly again, I think he's hated the most and viciously attacked the most by some of the people he's helped the most. A blog post I recently read has a list of 35 accomplishments of this man who has led this country, in safety at home and abroad, for almost eight years now. After reading it, you'll see that it's one of those unfortunate realities of life that those who may have benefited most from your efforts often are those who most maliciously oppose you:

"We Don't Want Four More Years of the Same."

You know, life is often like this. The truth does not always seem to prevail. But God will prevail in His time. I have a portion of a poem for you. For some reason, some of the words in it have been ringing in my ears throughout these days of searching for truth. May I say that we all should be searching for truth. James Russell Lowell was the author of this poem; many of you may know about it already. This brave man was an abolitionist who lived from 1819-1891. These words are from The Present Crisis, one of his writings against slavery. It's the portion Neesie had to learn in her ninth grade English last year, another reason I appreciate ABeka Video School. It is my contention that these words would also apply to the current crisis that is raging in the United States:

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God’s new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right,
And the choice goes by forever ’twixt that darkness and that light.

Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand,
Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land?
Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet ’tis Truth alone is strong,
And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her throng
Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong.

Careless seems the great Avenger; history’s pages but record
One death-grapple in the darkness ’twixt old systems and the Word;
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,—
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

I hope this post isn't offensive to anyone. It shouldn't be. I felt constrained, literally, to speak on behalf of this public servant to whom I owe a great deal. And needless to say, I won't accept any comments that seek to malign him in a contemptible way. Finally, this is a call to all who want to do what is right, to pray for him during these difficult, and probably quite painful, days.