One thing George W Bush did was stick with his convictions and risk his personal success to do what he believed was right for the nation. The fact is our last President changed the face of Islam and the Middle East in profound ways – all for the better. After 9-11 al Qaeda was the future of Islam in places like Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. When President Bush left office it was the enemy of Islam in these places and around the world – once the brutal and bloody nature of the movement was exposed in the wars we waged to change the course of humanity. These wars were costly, but necessary.

The full results of President Bush’s bold and decisive actions will not be know for years to come. But that is the sign of a leader and a historic figure. I am not directly comparing Bush to Lincoln, but both men took on very unpopular wars in order to bring the nation to a new and better place. Lincoln’s war was the most devastating on this nation ever, and included the suspension of many of the rights we take for granted today – and yet he is revered today as a national hero. I am sure a good chunk of the people did not think so while Lincoln was in office.

They were of course wrong.

President Obama is not like President Bush. His beliefs are rooted in the fiction of liberal government and how great he is – and by extension, how mediocre our nation is. He is, after all, ‘the one’ we all have been waiting for! Sadly, he is currently at a loss on how to prove to us (and himself) this greatness. Look at how he is grappling with his midterm debacle:

President Obama must decide now how he wants to govern in the two years leading up to the 2012 presidential election.

In recent days, he has offered differing visions of how he might approach the country’s problems. At one point, he spoke of the need for “mid-course corrections.” At another, he expressed a desire to take ideas from both sides of the aisle. And before this month’s midterm elections, he said he believed that the next two years would involve “hand-to-hand combat” with Republicans, whom he also referred to as “enemies.”

It is clear that the president is still trying to reach a resolution in his own mind as to what he should do and how he should do it.

The fact President Obama cannot face up to the reality that this nation abhors his liberal policies and the disaster of Obamacare is just another in a long list of indicators that he does not get it. He has to understand this nation is not liberal, not even liberal leaning, if he hopes to get right with the voters. He is showing no signs of enlightenment.

Obama and his team need to wake up to what the nation told them:

Near the midpoint of his presidency, Barack Obama’s diverse voter coalition reveals giant cracks and he faces major work repairing his standing among independents in states crucial to his re-election chances. Catholics. Older people. Women. Young adults. They shifted toward Republicans in this month’s elections and failed to support Obama’s Democratic Party as they did in 2008.

Two years before voters render judgment on his tenure, Obama’s most critical task may be winning back those who aren’t affiliated with a party but who hold enormous sway in close contests. National exit polls from the midterm elections show these voters broke heavily for Republicans after helping elect Obama and Democrats in the two previous elections.

As for those independents, the damage to the Democrats is deep and broad:

The advisers are deeply concerned about winning back political independents, who supported Obama two years ago by an eight-point margin but backed Republicans for the House this year by 19 points.

That is a 27% swing – a third of independents. No President has lost so many in such a short period of time since Richard Nixon. And yet our young inexperienced President dithers and denies, hoping to find some way to prove he is right and the nation is wrong:

Advisers also said it will probably take months, if not longer, to develop a strategy for restoring some of the early promise of the Obama presidency, particularly the notion that he was a different kind of Democrat.

…

The changes, however, will not come in a dramatic fashion, as President George W. Bush’s firing of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld right after the 2006 midterms did. Outsiders expect the changes to feel subtle, given the Obama track record.

“There isn’t going to be a reset button. That’s not their style,” said a Democratic strategist who works with the White House on several issues. “They don’t like pivots, and they also believe they’re right.”

President Obama is in this mess because he has no idea what the private sector does or how it operates. He has been raised on liberal mythology regarding what it means to run or work for an American business. Therefore he has to either admit he is naive and get people in there to help him out of his mess, or he must work to convince himself and us you don’t need anything more than a Disneyland view of the world to be President of the United States. This, of course, is impossible to do.

The Democrats only thought about packaging in 2008. What would be the coolest minority to win election. They did not care about credentials or experience or a real vision for America (“the waters receding” is not a real vision, it is grandiose delusion). They thought this through like they think all their grand ideas through – that is to say not at all. Now they are stuck with this political albatross – for another 2 years.

In any other job in America the liberal leaders in DC would be shown the door for their performance. In the case of Nancy Pelosi we got close enough, in the case of Harry Reid we did not. When you hand the keys to the nation over for four years you have to make sure the person can handle the ship of state.

In 2008 we let our exhaustion with the challenges George W Bush laid at our feet lead us to believe in an easy and vague way out. We wanted out of the hard and painful work we had taken on after 9-11. And so we allowed a bunch of malcontents to wave Candy Land visions at us and lure us into thinking we could simply ignore the challenges facing us. A harsh lesson to learn, but we are learning. The 2010 elections proved that.

The truth is we have grown way to accustomed to dumping problems on the government to fix. It only makes the problems worse. We need to roll up our sleeves, take care of ourselves and shrink government down to the bare minimum. We must strive each day to find another federally funded chunk of wasted effort that we can do without and turn the lights out on it.

We need to get back to the basics. We need to get back to America. We need to get back to work and stop handing our lives and our money over to scam artists.

Update: President Obama spouts an “Are You Kidding?” observation:

President Obama offered a lesson for Republicans that he learned the hard way during his first two years in office.

“Campaigning is different than governing,” Obama told reporters Sunday when asked about his meeting with GOP leaders later this week.

Really?