Don’t just Boot Bush – Reboot

It’s pretty clear that the American people want to boot Bush & Co. out of the Whitehouse. Barack Obama’s message of change absolutely resonated in Iowa, stunning the country with an astounding win. Even on the Republican side, the insurgent who criticized the President’s “bunker mentality” beat the corporate Bush-apologist in Iowa. Change has been the recurring theme of this campaign so far. However, I think we need more than change. We need to not just boot out Bush: we need to reboot the system.

Let’s face it. If any of the Democrats are elected, change will come. There is little doubt that Barack Obama, John Edwards or Hillary Clinton would change some of the Bush policies. Let’s be honest here. If you read the position papers of all three Democrats, you will find that most of the differences in position are tinkering around the edges. The core messages are the same. Healthcare is broken and needs to be fixed. The environment is in crisis and must be healed. Education is weak and has to be supported.

We also need to restore America’s standing in the world. The pictures of Abu Ghraib still circulate on the internet as inspiration for would-be terrorists. The Bush Administration has held prisoners without trial, based on secret evidence, while Bush hides behind a veil of “state secrets” and executive privilege. It is shameful.

One difference between Barack Obama and his Democratic rivals is his ability to not just change the reputation of America in the world, but to reset it, to give us a fresh start, to reboot the political system. The election of Barack Obama as president does more than continue the conversation with different players and an altered message. It completely changes the context of the conversation.

There are times when a system doesn’t just need to close the old programs and open new ones. Until we completely reset the system, there are programs that can continue to run in the background unnoticed. We need to reboot with Obama.