I imagine that most people have their formative politician; the man who colored their view of politics and government at the time when they became aware of what a president and a government can actually meant to their lives. My formative politician was George W. Bush.

I didn’t vote for G.W. in 2000, but I wasn’t particularly concerned when he won, or didn’t, or sort of did. And in my mind, his presidency didn’t begin until 9/11, 2001. Can you remember anything he did as president before that day?

I was a youthful editor of my college newspaper then, and all my memories of 9/11 revolve around that ramshackle, old office. We all rallied around our president in those days that followed — us newspaper nerds, us Americans. And as I sat on that beat-up old couch in the office and watched Bushy standing in the rubble of the WTC, I remember thinking, “Thank God he’s our President.”

In the weeks and months that followed there was Afghanistan, then WMDs, then Iraq. I participated in many vigorous debates around our big, brown, faux-wood-laminate meeting table. This was a college newspaper, in New York City, and so the sharpest young minds of our modest school would debate any and every thing that our government did. I relished those debates.

I defended my president in those days. I believed, to my core, that — especially at a time like this — we had to trust our leaders. We elected them to lead us after all. We had the best minds hard at work in Washington. They knew more than we did. We didn’t have access to the information they had. If W. said something that didn’t sound honest, I ignored it, assuring myself that there must be good reason. I brushed aside arguments that started with Vietnam (in the past, get over it!) or Halliburton (leftist conspiracy theory!).

I heard people say that we had no exit strategy for Iraq, and thought to myself, “Don’t be ridiculous, our President and our Secretary of Defense would not invade a country without an exit strategy!”

Doh!

The enormity of my naiveté began to crystallize around the time we finally acknowledged there were no WMDs.

I used to hold our president in special regard, and G.W. taught me never to do that again. I’ll never blindly trust government again — and that makes me sad. Wiser, perhaps, but sad.