America has had enough partisan gridlock and pointless bickering. I wish Congress could agree like they and the media so bravely did in 2003, when the already discredited testimony of an anonymous source was used as the only evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and Congress sent thousands of soldiers to invade Iraq. Now that’s a compromise we should be trying to emulate.

The people of this great nation wish we could go back to the days when politicians could act with foresight and make bold decisions, like when Hillary Clinton and John McCain (and 75 other senators) set aside their bipartisan differences to vote to authorize the use of military force in Iraq. That’s the American way.

Not to mention the media – it’s such a shame that the president and major outlets like the New York Times, CNN, and Washington Post don’t get along now. Everyday Americans yearn for unity, like when the Times and Post editorial boards unquestioningly supported the invasion of Iraq despite the lack of concrete evidence, or any planning for replacing the Iraqi government after the overthrow of Hussein.

Say what you will about George W Bush. He may have spearheaded a fraudulent justification of war manufactured by imperialist hawks with close links to the defense industry, he may be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi children, women, and men and thousands of American troops, and he may be responsible for the bungled management of Iraqi occupation and the subsequent emergence of the insurgency and ultimately of ISIS, but his presidency showed us what’s truly important in American politics: adherence to norms and being an affable, friendly guy. Especially when you’re catastrophically unsettling global geopolitics.