Presidential learning curve

Recently, I was talking to a friend about the debate between Palin and Biden. While discussing the debate, we began to wander off topic and talk about what the upcoming president will have to do in order to restore faith in government and the presidency. As most people have said, both sides have been dodging the endorsement of President Bush. My friend claimed that the next president, whether they be Barack Obama or John McCain, will have to disown President Bush completely and make sure that people know that they do not want to be associated with him. However, I took the stance that they should learn from President Bush’s mistakes. When the next president is making speeches about foreign policy, instead of saying how horrible President Bush’s strategy is, they should say what is different about their strategies and how they are going to change the policy for the better. This is when I thought of the passage I memorized from The Bhagavad-Gita. In the sixth teaching, stanza 43, Krishna says, “There he regains a depth/ of understanding from his former life/ and strives further/ to perfection, Arjuna.” While quoting The Bhagavad-Gita was a conversation stopper, it also helped immensely in proving my point. I used my quote here because I knew that the presidency is like reincarnation. The next president is always working towards a better and more perfect nation. Sometimes you get presidents that slack off during their “life” and the nation goes back to a “fly sniffing poop,” but generally, they use the previous presidency as a model to improve upon and make a more perfect nation during their term. After hearing this, my friend could not deny that the next president would have to reference President Bush sometimes in order to make improvements to our nation.