"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?" (George W. Bush, Florence, S.C., January 11, 2000)

Go ahead, it's okay to laugh, or even just to shake your head in wonder. Yes, it is true; an Ivy League education doesn't mean much at all. If that were the extent of things, America wouldn't be in such a sorry state today. Unfortunately, Bush is a lot more dangerous than that. Never mind the reversal of historical policy when it comes to pre-emptive wars of aggression; forget the way "the uniter" (which isn't even a word, for God's sake) has managed to divide decades-old alliances with the rest of the world. This man can't even stick to his own words when it comes to his deeds.

It doesn't help matters at all when the media decides to play along with the White House when it comes to covering the administrative lies and errors. Only independent media and National Public Radio have bothered to throw even the dullest of darts at him, and plans are already underway to take away NPR's funding. The rest of us are discounted as being either lunatics or malcontents - talk about the kettle calling the pot black. But if you had just landed here from another planet and started paying attention to television, radio and newspapers, you would not know about any of the real problems facing our country, problems which have been ignored and allowed to fester.

You can see this in the way that funds for "homeland security" have been distributed disproportionately to the states that voted Republican in the last couple of elections, just as the price of gasoline is cheaper in those states. Despite the fact that only New York and Washington D.C. have been bedeviled by terrorists, monies have been sent willy-nilly all over the map, provided those states are painted red by Bush's planners. Again, if it only boiled down to a matter of political favoritism, nobody would have a reason to even bat an eye; it happens. But the bottom line is this:

You can't trust this man. This man has no integrity, no honesty, and has an astonishing proclivity for not walking the way he talks.

Don't believe me? You poor thing... Check it out:

"We're dealing with first-time responders to make sure they've got what's needed to be able to respond." (Bush, March 27, 2002) Five months later, he rejected out of hand a grant package that would have given $150 million to those who would be on the front line of any new attacks, and his budget proposal (which hasn't a prayer of getting through the filibuster-minded Senate) called for a billion dollars in cuts where grants to local police and fire departments across the nation are concerned.

"I said when I was running for President, I supported ethanol, and I meant it... I support it now, because not only do I know it's important for the ag (agricultural) sector of our economy, it's an important part of making sure we become less reliant on foreign sources of energy." (Bush, speaking at the South Dakota Ethanol Plant, April 24th, 2002) Yet Bush's 2004 budget proposes to amputate the program that provides the funds for that very same ethanol plant, according to the Associated Press.

"My job as the President is to submit a budget to the Congress and to set priorities, and one of the priorities that we've talked about is making sure the health care systems are funded." (Bush, at Egleston Children's Hospital, Atlanta, Georgia, March 1st, 2001) Bush's first budget proposed a $34 million reduction in grants to children's hospitals, and his 2004 budget calls for cuts of $86 million in such grants.

"The Customs Service is working with overseas ports and shippers to improve its knowledge of container shipments, assessing risk so that we have a better feel of who we ought to look at, what we ought to worry about." (Bush, June 24th, 2002) Tough talk, which is what we all want to hear in this regard, but the fact is that zero dollars have been put into the '03 and '04 Bush Budgets for port security. While Congress provided a quarter of a billion dollars in grants (35% less than they were authorized to cough up), Bush opted to veto the Container Security Initiative, which would have provided another $39 million in funding.

Need more? Yes, I think you do. "We've got to do more to protect worker pensions." (Bush, August 7th, 2002) By now, most of you know that the Treasury Department has announced plans to propose new rules giving employers the ability to convert pension plans as we knew them to 'cash balance' plans that can lower benefits to those workers who have displayed the most loyalty to their companies. While this will help the corporados out there, it kills the very soul of American productivity.

There are many more examples of Bush's duplicity, which is something you would do well to keep in mind, as Bush will find himself denying that he will reinstate the draft in the coming months. But you won't find any of this in the mainstream press, hogtied as it is by its masters' desire to get richer than they already were. They are part and parcel of this canard of lies, designed to strengthen the grip of neo-conservative politics on our country. All that is at stake here is our liberty, for which so many generations of Americans have worked, fought and died.