Why George W. Bush Was a Bad Choice for President

Why George W. Bush was a bad choice for President

On January 20, 2001, George W. Bush took the oath of office for his first term; this is when the nightmare began. Bush would be just like his father, even though he said he wouldn't. If he wasn't like his father then he wouldn't try to continue a war his father lost and he is losing right now. Bush did do other things his father didn't, but these things were bad decisions that will hurt both schools and the economy. America made a terrible mistake when they voted in George W. Bush as our 43rd President of the United States of America.

First, Bush sent American troops into a war that he lied about to be able get it started, and was only started because his father failed at winning it before. Supposedly, Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Yes, Iraq did have weapons, but the weapons were legal and were normal weapons any country has. Now, a lot of people say we should have gone in there because the people were suffering under the tyranny of Saddam Hussein and I agree, but our first priority should have been to capture the Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. Then, we could have gone and attacked Iraq. Bush thought that we could split up the forces in Afghanistan and send half to Iraq and keep the other half after Bin Laden, but by doing that Bin Laden got away. Besides the fact that Bush let Bin Laden get away, but he also lied to the American people by telling them that there were definitely weapons of mass destruction in Iraq when U.N. weapons inspectors told us that Iraq doesn't have and didn't have any weapons of mass destruction in over 10 years. In order not to look bad, though, Bush changed his reason for going into the war to the fact that we installed a democratic government Iraq. Another problem with this war is the casualties, the US alone has about 1,500 and even more were wounded. The question I have to ask is, why? Many people say that we saved many people, yes we did, but if we waited for more backing from the UN then these casualties would be less. Also, I would like mention on the fact that Bush contradicts himself on the ending of the war. After we captured Saddam on December 13, 2003, Bush announced that, "It's over," (Bush, 03) but before he said that, "Helping Iraqis achieve a united, stable, and free country will require our sustained commitment" (Bush, 03.) This last quote contradicts the first one. If the war is over then how can we sustain our commitment? Putting everything together, there are two things wrong with Bush and his Iraq War: Did we have a good reason to start it, and is there going to be an end to the deaths of US troops?

Second, one of the things that Bush did on his own was passing some unpopular laws. The first one and probably most hated one by some teachers is No Child Left Behind (NCLB). NCLB has many parts, but I'm going to highlight on only a few. The first part is that according to NCLB a teacher must have certain amount of credits in the subject that he/she is teaching not a degree. As an example, my sixth grade math teacher was qualified before NCLB was passed because he had a degree in math, but now he is considered unqualified because he didn't have the set amount of credits. Credits shouldn't matter because as long as a teacher has a degree then they have taken all the classes that they need. Another person affected by this is a teacher's aide. In order to aide a teacher by NCLB they again have to have a set amount of credits. This I am not against, but I am against the fact that a substitute teacher is higher than the aide just because they have more credits, but not the experience. Experience should come before credits because in some classrooms a textbook won't help you. The final part I will touch on is that all standardize test scores will be reported to the federal government. When Bush was governor of Texas he had law like this passed there and the scores did go up, but only in minority students. After this an article in the Washington Post came out saying, "...standardized tests are too easy and ... aggressive test-drilling inflates children's scores and turns some schools into drab factories for test preparation"(Washington Post, 00.) If students' grades are inflated then they aren't going to show the true score that will tell us if they need extra help. Another thing is that children can no longer be held back, but if the student goes forward when they shouldn't they will surely fail. Bush thought this law was going to help, but all it did is cause more trouble.

Finally, Bush is destroying our economy. When Bush started in office one