You can't blame it all on Bush

While I can understand why Democrats were justifiably disappointed that Al Gore lost in a close election to Bush in 2000 and further disappointed that John Kerry lost to Bush in 2004, I really feel that their almost 8 years of Bush-bashing has been excessive and tainted their objectivity.

It seems that if their power, cable or water heater went out, they would blame it on Bush! Can we please be a little realistic? During the first 6 years of the Bush administration the economy was doing reasonably well. The last two years have left something to be desired. What changed? You tell me who is in charge of the adversarial, do-nothing Congress with a whopping 9-17% approval rating. I heard 50% of the American people would prefer throwing them all out and selecting replacements randomly from the phone book!

Given their performance, I couldn't agree more! With the current economic situation, while most are pointing fingers elsewhere and no one wants to accept responsibility, there is plenty of blame to go around to everyone. The incompetence, mismanagement, and greed of real estate, financial, banking, and insurance industries is obvious, shared by those in the federal government agencies and Congress that were tasked and failed in their oversight and regulation of these industries. It is apparent that many were in derelict in their duties and accepted improper donations. In this year, where all representatives are up for re-election, we need to vote for those that had the courage to do the "right" thing and to send the rest of them to "seek new opportunities" elsewhere. The same criterion goes for the rest of the people on the ballot.

Daryl Pratt

Arlington Heights