[irishtrekker]

Richi, with respect, this administration has been in charge for almost six years. Its political party has been in control of both legislatures. They've had quite a bit of time to start learning from their mistakes, since they have admitted that they went in there without much of a plan. Their intelligence was bad. It cost a lot of lives, both American and Iraqi. I certainly haven't seen any evidence that they had the "best" intentions of anyone in mind, unless you actually believe what comes out of their mouths these days (and how can we, when nothing they say is credible anymore?).

I blame the Dems, too, which is why I refuse to describe myself as a Democrat...but there's a reason people blame the Bush Administration. It's because they are our LEADERS. They are supposed to avoid making huge mistakes because they are technically supposed to be well-equipped to do their jobs. If a CEO managed his company like this, he'd have been removed by the BoD long ago. History will be the judge (well, assuming we can access any of the papers this Administration has produced -- see recent, poorly covered news about their decision to shut down regional EPA libraries and bar the public from accessing EPA records for personal research). The administration has demonstrated time and again that they lack the ability to deal effectively with national and international challenges, from Iraq and Katrina to climate change and healthcare. Oh, and instead of responding to valid criticism with erudite remarks, as you'd sort of expect from a world leader, the people he's hand-picked resort to calling people like me fascists and Nazi appeasers. If Bush fired Rumsfeld the second he said that, I'd probably like him a whole lot more...hello, I'm a citizen, too! We live in a democracy, and when my dissent is ridiculed by my own presidential administration, I become VERY worried. What, exactly, am I supposed to respect here?