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On Tuesday, President George W. Bush told his minions in the mainstream media that the Democratic Congress is to blame for America’s current economic woes. Bush seems to believe that if those awful, awful lefties had just gone along with Republican ‘trickle-down’ theory, everything would be just peachy right now. Unfortunately, Bush has deluded himself that there is still enough water in the well to trickle either up or down.

Our current economic situation, which is recessionary, inflationary or depression-ary depending on whom you talk to, is unlike anything the country has experienced before. Unlike the American depression of the 1930’s and 40’s, when the rich got richer and the poor got poorer, today’s scenario has leveled the playing field a mite, having decreased the fortunes of people in all economic classes. Even major retailers like JC Penney and Wal-Mart are feeling the pinch, as their giant box stores now serve more as warehouses than points of sale.

For the first time since World War II, the middle-class cannot access traditional sources of cash like home equity or market funds to keep body and soul together. Banks are hanging on tightly to all money in their control, and market funds tied to the often fraudulent home mortgage schemes that have marked the 21st Century are nothing but bad memories for those who lost their savings with them. Sadly, the well has run dry and while it’s characteristic for Bush to blame Democrats for any mud he has splashed on his own face, this new debacle lies squarely at the mired boots of Republicans.

While the Federal Reserve and the White House have been scrambling to put a big patch on this gaping wound, our economic problems of late were foreseeable some years back, and could have been dealt with as early as 2005. I know this because during the summer of 2006, I toured Ohio with then Representative Sherrod Brown, who was running for the Senate.

Foreclosure rates in the big cities like Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati were already reaching record levels, due mostly to the bait and switch variable rate loans banks and mortgage companies were offering low income people looking to achieve the American dream. Things were fine until the variable kicked in and payments doubled, leaving hard working people with few choices but foreclosure and a huge dunning of their credit worthiness. Ohio was the epicenter for the financial mess today, and the only person in Congress driving this point home in 2006 was Brown, as progressive a Democrat as one can be.

All of this was done under the closed eyes of federal bank and mortgage regulating agencies, which Mr. Bush and the Republican Congress made sure were run by industry insiders. One would think that a Republican president and Congress wouldn’t want to make the same mistake as one of their nemeses, Democratic President Jimmy Carter, who paved the way for de-regulating Savings and Loans during the last part of his term. Yet that’s exactly what the Republican dominated Congress worked at since their coup in 1994. It just took about ten years to slacken all the strings President Franklin Roosevelt was able to tie around the banking and investment industries, and once the ties were severed, banks and investment firms couldn’t wait to open a Pandora’s Box, unleashing a fury for profit that has crippled our nation.

If anything, the President and Congressional Republicans have been trying to create an economic caste system, eliminating the middle-class leaving only the rich, the super-rich, the poor and the working poor. Now that they’ve nearly reached this goal, voters have seen through their thinly veiled attempt and Bush and his pals in Congress are once again back-pedaling, trying to save the 2008 elections to preserve their hold over government.

The three monkeys now running for president have proposed solutions to the problem, but like their stances on global warming and universal health care, these proposals have come too little, too late. This is hallmark American politics- wait until there is almost nothing that can be done about a problem, and then make suggestions instead of trying to head off the disaster before it happens.

Now that the great ship of state has run aground, working and middle class families have turned to selling their family heirlooms on online auction sites and classified ad sites like AuctionPal.com and CraigsList.org to pay the monthly bills, fill up the car with gas or feed their children. When was the last time you heard Hillary, Barack-ly, or John-ly add this dilemma to their stump speeches?

Back before Mountain Bell Telephone was de-monopolized, one could see bumper stickers emblazoned on the back of cars with the Ma Bell logo and the phrase “we don’t care, we don’t have to” written beside it. Nobody could have predicted twenty-five years ago that this dictum would one day become the unofficial motto for our country.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that President George W. Bush is losing the so-called ‘war on terrorism’. If anything, anti-Western forces have garnered multitudes of adherents since the ‘war’ was declared and their leaders have entrenched themselves upon the world’s stage. However, the Bush administration has now created a new front in the war on terrorism, this time targeting language. From the small confines of his very fuzzy logic, Bush has decided the words we use about terrorism speak much louder than the contemptible actions he has resorted to in response to terrorism.

It’s a fascinating development. According to this new list of linguistic paradigms, we’re not to call Al Qaeda a ‘movement’ nor describe extremists as “jihadists” or “mujahedeen”. According to Bush, such language only fosters impressionable young Muslims to join Al Qaeda. You see, it’s not our constant saber rattling against Muslim powers like Iran and Syria, or our loathsome destruction of Iraq and our strangulation of her people that is making recruits for Al Qaeda, but the language we use to describe them.

On a recent trip through the Western United States, I found myself watching a satellite TV network called the Military Channel. This particular morning featured a documentary on American soldiers guarding prisoners in Iraq who routinely torture, wrestle and harass Iraqi’s accused of various crimes. If such images are readily available to audiences in the US, I’m fairly sure they’re also available to Muslims across the globe. Perhaps I’m wrong, but it occurs that such images, with their commercial interruptions advertising Western goods, might be among the reasons why Al Qaeda and other insurgent groups are gathering more people to their cause.

I also wonder why the three seasoned politicians now competing for the highest office in our nation have yet to address this issue. Certainly John McCain, who has made much of the torture he endured as a POW during the Vietnam years, would be a strong advocate against such pictures being shown on a commercial network. Barack Obama, who has rallied millions of progressive voters to his call for change in America, could be a powerful ally in convincing large corporate sponsors of programs like this to point their advertising dollars in another direction. Hillary Clinton has electrified her base by taking the Bush Administration to task for their incompetence and pathological war mongering.

Yet, none of the presidential candidates are addressing disconnect between the damage the Bush Administration has done to the Muslim world and their haphazard attempts at damage control. Clinton and Obama are engaged in a dogfight for the Democratic nomination, slinging mud at one another as often as they can. Wouldn’t it be more prudent for each to point out the idiocy of trying to parse terrorism and how quickly our nation has forgotten the lessons of Abu Ghraib?

No. Instead, we’re told that the newly released Bush document, and another internal memorandum entitled “Words that Work and Words that Don’t: A Guide for Counterterrorism Communication” will be distributed this week by the State Department to all US embassies throughout the world. “It’s not what you say, but what they hear” the memo’s say in bold italic lettering. I’m sure diplomats using the new language will make Muslims feel much better about America’s dogmatically imposed control of their lives. With just a few well placed words, they’ll stop worrying about our quest to seize their natural resources and our bloody pursuit of dominating their political and cultural structures. Yeah, right.

It would be nice to report that some American leader out there understands terrorism from a broad perspective, but that just isn’t the case. Bush’s language protocol is nothing more than a flimsy bandage on a gaping gunshot wound and sadly, whichever miniscule presidential candidate gets elected will not have the ability to treat this wound properly, leaving it to fester more.

The information superhighway has recently been clogged with blogs excoriating ABC News. It seems people were a tad disappointed with Thursday night's debate telecast featuring Democratic beauty contestants Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama being grilled by moderators George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson. Bloggers complained about the lame proceedings, wondering where the beef was. I'm wondering why they've chosen now to complain.

Frankly, I didn't watch the Thursday evening debate debacle. Considering that the confab was sponsored by a card carrying member of the mainstream media, I was fairly certain nothing enlightening would come from the exercise. What surprises me is that so many of my fellow Internet opinion swillers thought this particular debate should have been better than it was.

If you read any amount of progressive op/ed pieces featured on the web, they all agree that the mainstream media (or MSM for short) has done a poor job informing the American public about what's going on in the nation. They're right. For over two decades now, the mainstream media has been less about informing us about the issues and more about informing us about products to buy. This concept is not lost on progressives, yet somehow they keep hoping the MSM will magically improve, especially when it comes to so-called debates between presidential candidates.

Just like toilet paper and fabric softener, presidential candidates are products to be sold by the major news organizations. The forums in which these candidates appear are no more than marketing devices. They are used to package politicians who answer highly generalized questions from million dollar a year pundits meant to give the consumer an idea of which politician is fresher, brighter, or new and improved. Again, progressives know this, so why are so many bloggers upset?

Apparently Stephanopoulos and Gibson took it easy on Hillary Clinton and instead bared down on Obama a bit. Perhaps the bloggers have already drunk the Kool-aid provided by the Obama marketing machine. Almost all of them who clucked about Thursday's event were upset with questions directed at Obama about not wearing a flag pin and the patriotism of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright among other trivial matters instead of addressing the big issues affecting the nation today. Considering that the MSM has been transfixed by the trivial for a generation, expecting it to change now is a little like expecting polar ice caps to stop melting off sometime soon.

I appreciate that a lot of people want real issues to be debated by our candidates- I'm one of those people. However, that just isn't apart of the plan anymore. If modern-day politicians have learned anything from their predecessors, it's not to commit themselves to anything they can't really accomplish. Such a move guarantees either a loss at the polls come November, or only one term in their leadership role if they actually do make it to office. So when it comes to politicians and the MSM, we'll just have to be pragmatic about each providing the public with the lowest common denominators possible. Call these televised assemblies Debates for Dummies if you will. Because the media and politicians simply aren't interested in handing out doses of reality to the intelligentsia- they are much more interested in creating illusions and manipulations for those who are unable to tell the difference between the show and the commercial.

Maybe someday the MSM will get back to covering the day-to-day uncertainties of living life in America. But don't fool yourself into believing the Democratic or Republican party will follow anytime soon. Addressing the realities Americans face will stir up hornet's nests with the parties. And the stings of those hornets will do much more damage to politicians than the pitiable complaints of Internet bloggers.

Now that the U.S. Is facing one of the worst financial debacles in its history, Congress is looking at new ways to trim the federal budget, fearing massive divestment by economic powerhouses China and Saudi Arabia. A recent bi-partisan proposal would make our shiny, new, so-called democracy in Iraq pay for further costs of its reconstruction through its barely functioning oil program. It's one of those ideas that are simultaneously brilliant and stupid.

In its brilliance, an Iraqi financed reconstruction will not only mean thousands of American contractors will be coming back home. It means that Iraq will have what it has deserved since President George W. Bush declared our military action there “Mission Accomplished.” A country that will be constructed by Iraqis within the cultural setting that has been a part of the country since biblical times. This may not mean much to some Americans, but its vital for Iraqis. Western encroachment on foreign territories like Iraq has inflamed the passions of those Arabs who have witnessed wholesale destruction of their cultural identity. Building Iraq with an emphasis on her long standing religious and ethnological standards will do wonders in easing some of the tensions in the torn nation. It will also put thousands of Iraqis back to work, which hopefully will take many of them off the front lines of the civil war between the two main religious factions in the country.

The problem is that Iraq's oil production is not as robust as our legislators would have us believe. While it's true that the Iraqi Parliament is preparing to bid out segments of its oil production capacity to a number of major oil companies, it's likely that these corporations won't be pumping oil out of Iraqi too soon. Terrorism is still a major threat, especially in the oil rich areas near Kirkuk. It may be years before oil companies step foot onto this mineral enriched soil and they are the only ones with enough financial backing to suck out the 115 billion barrels of oil reserves. There may be upwards to 300 billion barrels of oil in unexplored parts of the nation, and it would take huge investments of infrastructure and a great deal of time in order to actually find and pump this oil and prepare it for export. Currently, Iraq only has only 2000 oil wells (Texas has over a million), and it's not known how many of them are actually functioning. Iraq doesn't have nearly enough funds to develop untapped resources- they barely have enough now to keep what little production they do have from failing completely. So it will be up to outside companies to make the investment, and without a hope of short term gains and unabated development, it will be a very long time before Iraqis or anyone else will be soaking themselves in black gold.

More importantly, this proposal shows that the US Congress still hasn't learned the lessons of history. After World War I, America and the allied forces abandoned a defeated and decimated Germany to try to stand on its own two feet and pay for the reconstruction of their nation. It plunged the country into an economic crisis that makes the American depression of the 1930's look like prosperous times. Thousands were homeless, jobless, their families broken; not to mention a ruined infrastructure which made transporting the few goods still made in the country impossible. Germans experienced mass starvation. The Kaiser and his functionaries were rendered mute as the government was in tatters. It took less than a generation before the Kaiser and the national socialist government that guided the nation was ousted, and Nazism came to the fore. It was a lesson that wasn't lost on future American leaders, who made a point of aiding those countries we had been at war with in their reconstruction to prevent another Nazi Germany from happening.

While Nazism probably won't rear its ugly head in Iraq, another strongman dictator like Saddam Hussein is certainly possible. There are a number of possible dictatorial leaders in the making in Iraq right now, most notably the young, charismatic Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. While al-Sadr is both loved and hated, even within his own sect, he has gained the kind of notoriety and effective use of the fiery pro-Islam and anti-Western invective which will win him more adherents as the Iraq War continues.

What could work is a financial partnership among Arab nations, Iran foremost among them. Iran has great influence over Iraq right now, as does Syria. Yes, they will likely slice off a giant piece of future oil profit for themselves, but this will be the sacrifice American leaders will have to make in order to have a stabilized Iraq while quietly pulling funding from rebuilding Iraq.

It remains to be seen exactly what Congress will do with this quandary. Further American investment will only fuel the ongoing civil war in Iraq and bring our economy closer to the brink of collapse. Divestiture will certainly mean trading a former Sunni dictator for a Shiite one. That Congress is only now grappling with this situation shows how incapable it is of understanding the true meaning of leadership. Had we considered these problems before breaking Iraq, our nation would be in a much better positions to take care of its own business.

I write this piece with a heavy heart. The last thing this country needs is another republican war machine as CEO of America, Inc. who believes we can bomb the Middle East into compliance. But unfortunately, that’s exactly what we’re going to have.

Even though the so-called left wing media and political progressives are gushing over Senator Barack Obama and his slow ascent to the democratic nomination, Obama has little chance of succeeding the more staid, traditional Republican Senator John McCain. While it’s true that many American voters are fed up with our current dear leader George W. Bush, Americans lingering affair with white bread, died in the wool lovers of American hegemony presidential candidates continues, and McCain fits the bill perfectly.

This is not to say that Senator Obama and his worthy opponent for the democratic beauty pageant nomination Senator Hillary Clinton haven’t made a worthy effort to appeal to those muddled voters who believe America as only a plain or two below some Christian paradise the saved will move to in the afterlife. Obama has shifted his position more times on Iraq and Afghanistan during his campaign than a crab running on the beach and Hillary, well, her lips say no more war but her favorite lobbyists are whispering in her ear ‘yes, yes, yes.’ Only fools believe Clinton will actually end the war, and only dreamers believe Obama will.

More important is the fact that our country is still home to hundreds of millions of God-fearing Christian-oriented traditionalists who just aren’t prepared to put either a mixed-race man or (God forbid!) a she-male in the world’s most powerful position. Don’t believe me? Take a drive sometime through Kansas, Missouri, and Kentucky and talk to those folks about the idea of either Obama or Clinton being president. These areas are strongholds of tradition, not to mention parts of the upper West and mid-West. This isn’t red vs. blue states anymore- this comes down to a values issue again, and Obama and Clinton do not fit the values of the vast majority of voters in this country.

Want more proof? Take a look back at the 2007/2008 primaries, and look how quickly McCain overtook the campaigns of his opponents. In the summer of 2007, McCain was considered by almost all of the pollsters and political prognosticators to be out of gas. Mitt Romney had more money, Rudy Giuliani had better press, and Mike Huckabee had a guitar and a song in his heart. This summer, McCain will be his party’s nominee because he appealed to a broad spectrum of conservative, evangelical, and centrist Republicans. In November, he will appeal to centrist and conservative Democrats as well.

This is a tragic scenario, because even though people understand the damage the war, continual tax cuts, global markets and corporate deregulation has had on the nation, they truly are gluttons for punishment.

You don’t need to have a PhD in psychology to figure out that President Bush was completely incapable of running the country in 2000. Yet, hundreds of millions of Americans re-elected him not because of ability to do the job, but out of a moral sense to ‘keep America strong against her enemies’. It’s a card Republicans have played since Ronald Reagan’s reign of error, and it continues to work among a populace that has adopted consumerism and prayer as the most responsible things they can do for the country.

So while I applaud the progressive effort to achieve “change for America”, it would be extremely unwise for us to hold our collective breath waiting for it to happen. It has been said that a person needs to hit rock bottom before s/he is more accepting of change. While John McCain as president is pretty close to rock bottom for our nation, we still have a long ways down to go before America can accept the idea that it needs true change.

Every progressive knows the Bush administration is thoroughly compromised. With the many crises confronting the country and continued revelations of high level corruption and political chicanery, more and more people are asking “where do we go from here?”

It’s an interesting question. Sadly, Bush and the right wing have proven that their capacity to destroy the foundation of our nation is far greater than progressives’ ability to apply realizable, alternative programs to move the country forward. It’s a problem the Left has been struggling with. In the effort to build a coalition among fellow travelers, many progressives have attempted to identify what they believe the American grassroots expects from such an alternative movement.

Progressive groups tend to identify the following as majority positions among the grassroots and overwhelmingly majority positions among Democrats: end the occupation in Iraq, impeach the Vice President, create single-payer not-for-profit universal health coverage, withdraw from corporate trade agreements like NAFTA and GATT , and slash the Pentagon budget in order to invest in diplomacy, foreign aid, education, jobs and green energy.

The difficulty here is that the above issues are not majority positions among all Americans and instead represent the view of very progressive individuals. It’s understandable why progressives believe these issues impinge upon the conscience of the general public. With weighted opinion polls sponsored by progressive pollster Zogby and the larger progressive groups, it’s easy to believe that our personal agenda carries more credibility than it actually does with the American people.

While it’s true that Americans of all political stripes are interested in a better health care system and a pull out of troops from Iraq, when pressed, it’s difficult for those same people to identify how to achieve those goals. What most Americans keep their eyes on are economic issues, namely the ongoing mortgage/credit crunch which, along with the continued downsizing of the manufacturing and professional sectors, is having a real effect on the future of average people and their children. These folks realize that trade agreements are largely to blame for this country’s recent economic downturn - but they also understand how difficult it will be to un-ring the bell of unconstrained free trade.

To build progressive coalitions among the grassroots, it is vital that we look at the country’s problems from their viewpoint. Progressives have noted the Democratic political contenders still tend to veer towards swing and independent voters instead of rallying the base like Republicans do. However, what progressive don’t acknowledge is that the base of the Democratic Party has greatly eroded since the Reagan era of the eighties. Centrist democrats and republicans can have a powerful effect on elections, as we’ve seen in both the 2000 and 2004 election. Some progressives have attempted to address this issue from an elections integrity standpoint- however, even with age-old and new vote-tampering techniques centrists are still a very tough nut for both democrat and republican contenders to crack. This is one of the reasons the language of political candidates is so maudlin. In a democracy, the most electable candidate is the one whom most people actually like. We no longer live in a political climate where kissing babies, exerting a strong handshake, and promising a chicken in every pot is enough to get you elected. Leaders running for office are now measured by “Q” ratings, much like pop stars and television celebrities. In the world of identity politics, John Edwards needs to rate as high for his recognition as Britney Spears does for hers.

To be liked, politicos go overboard in trying to be all things to all people, and through this, the stronger political messages get lost. It’s up to progressive groups to formulate the big picture issues which focus on the growing concerns of the electorate, and to present a realistic picture of what the grassroots are experiencing.

Out of the vast array of social movements in our country comprehensive policy can be formed. However, progressive groups need to do more than mouth the oft-repeated contempt of Bush and his right wing allies for working people and the poor. They will need to build a strong political base with policy that sets our country on the path to the peace and justice they so desperately urge. Progressives across a broad political spectrum must come together and establish unity around common policies that include the concerns of all Americans, and not just those from the highly-charged activist left.

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has announced his resignation, joining a long line of rats abandoning the sinking ship of the Bush Administration. Progressives are delirious over Gonzales’ announcement. Lefty discussion groups are offering the literary equivalent of high fives to each other for their persistence in calling for Gonzales to leave office.

Gonzales was certainly not the brightest Attorney General we’ve had, but I have to wonder if his departure really means much. It’s true that the chairs in this administration are moving around again- Presidential aide Karl Rove, and Press Secretary Tony Snow also announced their intent to move on from so-called public service- but essentially, the policies remain the same.

Although the Senate has pledged to probe the Justice Department’s firing of eight US Attorneys, without Gonzales, there really isn’t anyone’s head to put in the chopping block. Allegations have been made that Rove ordered the hit on the attorneys, but Rove is gone too. Unless both are compelled to testify about possible criminal wrongdoing on the part of the Bush Administration (fat chance) in this matter, Rove and Gonzales’ resignations may actually serve to stymie the investigation.

Meanwhile, the more heinous and some say illegal actions of the administration including the rendering and torture of terror suspects and electronic eavesdropping of American citizens with supposed connections into the murky world of terrorism go on unabated. As most of you already know, the Senate was so offended by Bush’s wiretap scheme they voted to make it the law of the land. If you’re counting on Bush’s new pick for attorney general to clean up the mess left behind by Gonzales, don’t hold your breath. Bush will choose another Republican puppet he knows will dance as he pulls his strings.

If we really want action, it’s going to take a Congress who isn’t so afraid of a president who some progressives characterize as a moron. The fact is Bush holds the keys to the magic kingdom of pork barrel, which often employs people in Congressional districts where good-paying jobs have become all too rare. Piss Bush off, and he’ll veto your spending bill. Bush understands Congress can’t manage an override, so in order to keep their constituents fat, dumb, happy, and at least partially employed, your au currant representatives in Washington continue to play Bush’s game. As long as Congress snoozes through the screams of the waterboarded and the harangue of civil libertarians, it just doesn’t matter which Bush minion carries out the policy.

So farewell, Alberto- don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out. Even though you’ll be gone soon, you won’t have the extra baggage of the policies you helped create to lug with you. That burden is strapped to the backs of the American people, where it will stay until the door hits the ass of your boss on his way out of office.

“My daughter died over there for nothing. And now the president has sent more lambs to the slaughter- it’s disgraceful!”- Joan, fifty-three year old receptionist.

“My husband has served five tours in Iraq and there’s no end in sight. His pay barely covers the rent, feeds the baby and myself. I’ve had to take in other kids so we can pay for electricity, water, and gas. How is my husband’s service helping us and other Americans?”- Jackie, twenty-six year old housewife and mother.

“I was in Vietnam. I have a son in Afghanistan and a nephew on the front lines in Baghdad. The two wars we’ve got going now are just a fuckin’ waste like ‘Nam. Now I hear our boys over there are assaulting female troops. If they don’t come home in body bags their coming home traumatized. What the hell was George Bush thinking?”- Gary, fifty-nine year old small businessman.

These comments were heard at voter education drives I conducted through the West last week. They were made by small town people from Cheyenne, Wyoming, Bismarck, North Dakota, Butte, Montana and Pocatello, Idaho. They are Democrats, Republicans, moderates, and conservatives, black, white, and Native American. When George W. Bush said in his 2000 presidential campaign that he was a uniter, not a divider, he didn’t realize how soon Americans would be united against him.

The mainstream media doesn’t cover their plight. They’ve called their local newspapers, TV, and radio stations, hoping to talk about the real fallout of these wars. Reporters never call them back. So they hang on by a thread each day; watching, hearing, and reading about the noble fights in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The media, president and legislators talk a lot,” said Gary, “but they don’t listen, least of all to us. What really pisses me off is I voted for that son of a bitch in 2000.”

Almost all of them voted for George W. Bush in 2000. They thought Bush brought with him former President Ronald Reagan’s dream of “Morning in America”. But that dream faded long ago. Now, they wear the stress of loss in their heavily lined faces, the ever-present bewilderment in their downcast eyes and the sense of abandonment that prematurely grays their hair. I listen to their stories and read between the worry lines that slash across their foreheads. I wish Bush could see them; feel the diminished strength in their handshakes and hugs; capture the explosive rage pumping through their veins as he pats their arms and shoulders. Then again, he probably wouldn’t know what he was feeling from them. You need to experience senseless loss before you can recognize the agony of it in others.

But that’s not all Bush has “united”. He’s united an endless stream of human meat in veteran’s graveyards across America with pulverized Iraqi’s and Afghan’s in Baghdad, Fallujah, Samarra, Barqubah, Karbala, Haditha, Kandahar and Kabul. He’s united millions in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas against him. There isn’t any corner of the world left where he hasn’t united people against him. Bush’s ability to unite people in disgust of his pre-adolescent worldview is extremely cold comfort for American military families mourning the carelessly discarded lives of their loved ones.

George W. Bush has yet to learn that no structure can stand upon a foundation of rotting bodies. On this point, Bush has united us all as well.