These Bush policies and these Bush appointees

Once upon a time "Bush policy" and "Bush appointee" would be a reason for seeing something overturned and never be used as a reason to excuse massive abuse of government power. Yet, it seems the current tenor of many conversations falls along the lines of --

Person A -- This is an outrage!

Person B -- Yeah, but that's what Bush did.

OK, so now what? Do we allow abuse to remain because the other guy was courteous enough to set it up? If it's bad then it's BAD now. It shouldn't be excused, it should be remedied. We need remedies. This nation is hurting, people are hurting.

We want a nation where we trust the government to allow us to make the best life-or-death health decisions for our families but we can't even trust them to not casually snoop on our phone records to see if we're talking to the "wrong people."