Letter to the Editor – 1/26

To the Editor, ‘ ‘ ‘ In a letter to the editor in Friday’s Pitt News, Patrick Graham made… To the Editor, ‘ ‘ ‘ In a letter to the editor in Friday’s Pitt News, Patrick Graham made some claims regarding the standards we apply to our presidents. ‘ ‘ ‘ The problem is this: If Obama is fantastically successful, he will receive a great deal of credit and be praised a hero. If he is unable to turn the failing economy around or prevent further failures, people will excuse him due to the difficult situation he’s been left with. ‘ ‘ ‘ Graham posed the question: ‘Is this a double standard?’ and supplied us with an answer, ‘Absolutely.’ Graham suggests that hypocrisy lies behind the claims that Bush was a resounding failure, whereas it would be more fair were we to provide excuses for him. ‘ ‘ ‘ Given the limited effectiveness of a person’s ‘mdash; even the president’s ‘mdash; abilities, we might expect little change in the world. Perhaps it does not reflect negatively or positively on an individual who fails to accomplish the near impossible ‘mdash; which the president’s job is looking more and more like. However, if he does well, he will have accomplished the near impossible and would therefore deserve much praise and thanks. ‘ ‘ ‘ Bush does not fit into either of these categories, since he was not simply a ‘do nothing’ president. Rather, he ignored the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, aided the growth of xenophobia and religious intolerance and began the prolonged war in Iraq. ‘ ‘ ‘ In this way, the exculpatory promise we issue to Obama is not a double standard. It is the selfsame standard by which we’ve judged Bush as one of the worst presidents in recent ‘mdash; and perhaps not-so-recent ‘mdash; history. Nathan Zimmerman Philosophy student