Damn, he sure can lead!

Three stories in the news the past week illustrate clearly what a mess Bush and the Republican Congress have made and are making with Iraq and the American economy. The Democrats aren't helping much, of course, but it all begins with Bush.

Today's story in the NYT, entitled Generals Offer Sober Outlook on Iraqi War, shows just how poor the situation is in Iraq. American soldiers will be there for years, and the 23 car bomb attacks this month alone nearly equal last year's total of 25. It was over two years ago that Bush stood in front of his "mission accomplished" banner and declared the "end to major hostilities" in Iraq. Pure fantasy. Wishing does not make it so. Meanwhile, over 1,600 American troops have died, nearly five times the number killed in Desert Storm. By the way, anyone seen bin Laden recently?

The Washington Post on Friday ran a column entitled 'Emergency' End Run about the financing of the war in Iraq. With the recent "emergency" appropriation of $82 billion dollars, the cost for the Iraq war has edged up over $200 billion. This is the third year in a row that Bush has kept these numbers out of the annual budget, only to request an "emergency" allocation of scores of billions later. Which Senator is going to deny funding for troops? Which President is willfully irresponsible about paying for this war that he wanted so badly?

And yesterday, the Post had another column entitled Almost Unnoticed, Bipartisan Budget Anxiety that says that the United States economy, if we stay to our current path, will collapse in 2040, just like Argentina. This is not some left-wing nut job but top people from both the conservative Heritage Foundation and the liberal Brookings Institution, both giving the same analysis and predicting the collapse of the US economy in the mid 2040s if some pretty big things don't change soon.

Take these three things together and try to be happy. I simply do not understand how anyone can think that Bush has been a good thing for this country. He is leading us right into utter failure.