The Bush Era is almost over and, for my money (or what’s left of it), it’s none too soon. As anyone who knows me will tell you I have never liked or voted for anyone named Bush—son, father or brother. However, like many of you my dislike and mistrust of politicians can actually be bi-partisan. For example Jimmy Carter ranks way down there when it comes to presidents. So does our present Congress, which can’t seem to get anything done, even with a very lame duck president as a foil. Other inept candidates include John Kerry, Al Gore who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in 2000, and the almost forgotten George Dukakis. They all blessed us with Bushmen in the White House.

Now that I have issued a moderating qualification on my opinions I will state clearly that in my humble opinion, at just about every level, George W. Bush is a disaster as our president. The U.S. will be lucky to survive his eight-year administration for a variety of reasons:

•Due to corruption, lack of oversight and inaction in the face of impending crisis our economy is on the brink of depression (not just recession). Baby boomers and seniors are hopelessly watching their retirement funds and real estate values shrink precipitously. More seniors are declaring bankruptcy than ever before. Even John McCain, the Republican candidate for president is running as far away from the Bush administration as he can (even though his voting record is 90 percent in agreement with Bush, which I find very hypocritical, but more on that later). As recently as two weeks ago Bush was on TV telling Americans that our economy was strong and would weather the storm. Now he’s sending us doomsday messages. Why do I feel like it’s just before the start of the Iraq invasion, when we were all stampeded into accepting the war based on the existence of weapons of mass destruction that in fact never existed. Now our economy is crashing and we have been asked to buy into another flawed solution.

•In the face of this impending economic disaster—that will not only take down the U.S. but most of the rest of the world’s economy with it—George W. Bush sends forth a taxpayer funded $700 billion (possibly a trillion-dollar) economic bailout program with little or no controls or accountability. It contains no measures to help out anyone but the Wall Street thieves who caused the crisis in the first place. Unbelievable! Fortunately the Senate and the House have, as of this writing, not allowed themselves to be run over and bullied into handing the guilty parties a blank check to fix the mess they created. Talk about allowing the fox into the hen house!

•Bush and most of the Republican party would