While everyone’s reacting to Obama being elected the next President of the United States, I wanted to take a minute and think about our current president. My mom sent me an email yesterday that really made me think. The subject of the forward was “Give Thanks!” I immediately thought it was going to be some cheery forward about Thanksgiving or something about family, but instead it was a long, somewhat surprising statement from David Letterman. Letterman refers to a Newsweek article that states that 67% of Americans are unhappy with the direction that the country is headed and 69% of the country is unhappy with the performance of the President. Two-thirds of our nation is unhappy with our President and the state of our nation. He takes those overwhelming stats and asks, “What are we so unhappy about?”

Letterman then lists points—A-M—sarcastic reasons why Americans might be unhappy with our nation right now. Some of the reasons are: “Maybe it is the ability to walk into a grocery store at any time and see more food in moments than Darfur has seen in the last year? You may be upset with knowing that in the unfortunate case of a fire, a group of trained firefighters will appear in moments and use top notch equipment to extinguish the flames thus saving you, your family, and your belongings.” There are innumerable things that our government—yes, including President Bush—does every day for us lucky citizens that we take advantage of. Most of us were born into this nation—into this democracy that provides us with so much freedom, hope and potential—and therefore know nothing else.

How can people be complaining so much about the President who “guided the nation in the dark days after 9/11? The president that cut taxes to bring an economy out of recession?” These and many other memorable acts have been shadowed by a recent slumping economy and a seemingly stagnant war. But also, in regards to the war, it’s notable to add that the United States has an army made of volunteers. There is no draft and, as Letterman says, there are chances for those soldiers already in Iraq to receive a general, honorable or dishonorable discharge—however, these brave soldiers are still in Iraq, still fighting for a country and a commander-in-chief that 2/3s of our nation complains about.

In the email Letterman refers to Americans as “spoiled brats,” and to some degree I have to agree. Let’s just remember all the positive things President Bush has done for our nation, be grateful for the job he has done being President of the most powerful country in the world for 8 years, and be optimistic of the future of our wonderful nation.