Alright, trolls. You’ve been bugging me for weeks to say something negative about President Bush and now you’re going to get your wish.

Somewhere in the archives is a post I did on blogger that will echo many of the same things I’m going to take the President to task for today. And scattered throughout other posts are various criticisms of the President’s profligate spending, his myopia on stem cell research, a general unhappiness with his catering to the fundamentalist wing of the Republican party, and a host of other minor annoyances that would prove to any fair person (liberals excluded) that I’ve got plenty to be upset about when it comes to the President’s policies.

Other center-right secularists like Bill Ardolino, Jeff Goldstein, John Cole, and Glenn Anderson have expressed similar dissatisfaction with the President. And while all of those worthies have said in the last month or so that they’re near the “tipping point” in their support for Bush, I’m not that close to joining them. Why?

I look at John Kerry, think of the alternative, and breathe a sigh of relief that it’s George Bush as President and not a man who would have entered office with a mandate to end the war.

That being said, George Bush has made a number of mistakes during his Presidency. Here, in my opinion, are just a few:

“WELL ARE WE AT WAR…OR AREN’T WE?”

That’s a question I asked during the first week this site was open. At that time, the terrorists were just beginning to step up their bombing campaign and the hell hounds in the media were baying at the President’s military strategy. My criticism, however, went back to early 2003 when it became clear that war with Iraq was a necessary adjunct to the war on terror.

My criticism had to do with the President’s entire approach to the coming conflict. I said at the time “it didn’t feel like we were going to war,” that the President didn’t step up to the plate and ask the American people to sacrifice anything, that indeed any sacrificing to be done would be borne by the armed forces and their families.

I realize now that the “cakewalk” theme was in vogue at the White House and the President didn’t think it necessary. But by May of 2004 when it became clear that the terrorists weren’t going away anytime soon, the President could have rallied the American people by abandoning much of his domestic agenda, slashing the budget, perhaps even (gasp! Here’s a novel idea)...) raising taxes to pay for the war.

It’s a good thing Bush didn’t listen to me. He would have been slaughtered in the November election.

That being said, I still feel the burden of this war is falling disproportionately on the military and their families. I think the President should have put everything else on the backburner in order to win this war. If that meant abandoning social security reform, so be it. What we have in Washington is too much “business as usual.” What we need is a sense of urgency. At the moment, we have North Korea and Iran on the horizon. Either one of those problems could lead to some kind of crisis that would involve the military. And with 125,000 of our best troops tied up in Iraq, this severely limits our options.

The President’s failure to rally the people and instead, depend on the 50% of us who couldn’t stomach the idea of Kerry’s wishy-washy internationalist approach to the conflict was the biggest mistake of his Presidency. He could have done better.

RUMMY HAS GOT TO GO

I admire the President’s sense of loyalty toward Secretary Rumsfeld but while he was throwing Colin Powell overboard he should have made it a clean sweep and dumped his defense secretary as well.

Now don’t get me wrong. I like Secretary Rumsfeld. He’s very smart. He’s got some capital ideas for altering our force structure to bring it in line with the realities of a post cold war world. And by and large, he was responsible for the war plan in Iraq that vanquished that army lickety-split. But he’s got to go. The reason? I’ll give you two words.

Abu Ghraib.

I’m with John Cole on this one. Someone has got to take ultimate responsibility for that fiasco as well as other abuse allegations that will soon come to light as the FBI, the Army, and other investigative bodies finish their probes into what appears to be isolated instances of torture and even death. I totally reject the moonbat argument that this torture was planned and carried out by the Administration, But that doesn’t lessen the responsibility of the civilian commander for these atrocities. There has also been a troubling lack of responsibility taken by commanders in the field, although ultimately this too would fall under the jurisdiction of the Secretary. He could have recommended the removal of any general officer under which these incidents of torture occurred. The fact that he didn’t shows a lack of understanding of how much real damage these incidents have done to use abroad.

This isn’t the way things used to be. Government officials used to take responsibility for screw-ups by resigning. The moonbats aren’t going to like this but you can trace this new attitude directly to President Bush’s predecessor.

Janet Reno may have been the most disastrous Attorney General in history. Not too many of her predecessors could have been charged with negligence that lead to the death of so many at Ruby Ridge and Waco. Either one of those disasters should have resulted in her immediate dismissal. As it is, the cover-ups involved in the incident at Waco (see the Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Waco: Rules of Engagement) should have perhaps landed her in jail. Instead, Clinton kept her on despite the fact that her incompetence resulted in people being killed.

Reno wasn’t the only Clinton cabinet official who could have been sacked. Ron Brown, Henry Cisneros, the odd Justice Department official, the occasional White House staffer – any of these transgressors would have been fired in a minute by a Carter, a Reagan, or even one so loyal as a Bush #41. The fact that they weren’t set a precedent that’s being followed by the President hanging on to Rumsfeld.

YOU’VE GOT THE DAMN VETO…USE IT!

The Constitution grants the executive very few expressed powers. That’s why it’s been called both the strongest and weakest office in government. Strong Presidents are those who’ve taken the Congress by the scruff of the neck and wrung what they want out of them. They do this with the Presidential veto.

The very threat of a veto is usually enough for Congress to bend to a President’s will. In fact, Bush threatened to use the veto 40 times during his first term. And yet, he became the first President in 175 years not to use the veto during a term in office.

What gives? It’s not like he didn’t have the opportunity. Take any highway bill ever passed by Congress. Now there’s a likely candidate. How about agricultural subsidies? Ditto. If the President’s intent is not to undercut Congressional Republicans, he’s doing the opposite. He’s acting like the wife of an alcoholic who pours her husband into bed every night after finding him passed out on the front porch. He’s an enabler of profligate, wasteful, and unnecessary spending.

It would be quite another thing if the President was trying to reform entitlement programs. He’s not. Instead, the biggest entitlement program in a generation, his prescription drug bill, has saddled the nation’s taxpayers with a half a trillion dollar albatross that didn’t please anyone.

Now it appears that his first use of the most potent weapon in his arsenal will be to kill research into embryonic stem cells (see The Maryhunters comment in this post for an excellent explanation of this issue). While I admire his adherence to principles, the fact that this is the issue that has engaged his interest to the point where he feels it necessary to veto a bill desired by a majority of the Congress and the people is a little troubling.

WE NEED TO SEE MORE OF YOU

This appears to be changing a little in that the President’s has given two prime time press conferences in he last two months. Facing the press is, I’m sure, a distasteful task. But it’s also a duty. Kind of like having to eat your vegetables before the chocolate mousse. It’s something that has to be done but the rewards for doing it are satisfying.

A President’s give and take with the press shows the people he’s on top of the issues that are important to them. Who knows? Maybe regular press conferences will bring your approval ratings up a bit.

ADMIT YOU’RE WRONG ABOUT SOMETHING

I understand why this wasn’t possible during the campaign. What the press and the left wanted wasn’t so much an admission you did something wrong. They wanted you to admit you were wrong about Iraq. They wanted to wallow in your humiliation like pigs in mud. They are beyond reprehensible.

That being said, maybe if you admitted you were wrong about something else. Anything else. Like picking the wrong place settings for that dinner with Chirac. Or you underestimated the insurgency in Iraq. Anything. The way it stands now, it doesn’t look so much like you’re not giving your political foes ammunition to use against you as it appears to be arrogance.

Maybe you can take John Kennedy’s advice. Bobby Kennedy was worried about press reaction to his being named Attorney General. Kennedy joked that the way they’d announce it would be the President would wait until the middle of the night, go outside of the White House, and whisper “it’s Bobby” and then run back in.

Sounds like a plan.

There…I’ve given all my special trolls and DU moonbats who are regular visitors to the House exactly what they wanted. Now, anytime any of you loons accuse me of being myopic about Bush, all I have to do is link to this post and you’ll shut up faster than Michael Moore at an Overeaters Anonymous convention.

Now can I go back to being a partisan political hack?