Thoughts and Ruminations on Life: Just for the hey of it...

I've thrown a widget a little further down the right side of my page that's recording the total and rising cost of the conflict in Iraq.

I've inserted it not because I think the economics of the situation provides a compelling argument why the United States should never have invaded Iraq (though in many ways it DOES underscore a raw, quantifiable cost of war), but as one thing among a host of others that George Bush is accountable for.

I mean, you tell me...what's better spent? 350 billion dollars to destroy a country and build it back up to be your lapdog (I guess the U.S. didn't learn from the Iran experiment in the 1970s). Or 350 billion dollars in invest in the infrastructure of your own country, to dedicate towards alternative fuels, to dedicate towards welfare reform, to dedicate toward educational reform, or to dedicate towards health care reform within your own borders.

I pray for George Bush, I do. I'm trying to respect him by not slandering him. So I'm not going to attack his character. But it's clear to me that his time as president will go down in history for an almost complete neglect of domestic issues for the sake of an ill-fated vengeance campaign against another sovereign nation that turns the clock back 70 years on international perception of the United States.

Domestic policy: failure (though there's a little more to discuss here)
Foreign policy : failure (not much wiggle room here)

And even worse, I hope and pray that George Bush really wasn't planning the attack in Iraq before he was even elected and, if so, repents publicly and comprehensively at some point in the future; as a confessing Christian, he is accountable to the church at large and centrally to God. I certainly would not want to stand before the judgment seat as GDub for his actions up to this point in history.

Let's raise a glass to '08 and the hope that Obama and McCain win their party nominations so I have to finally (for once!!!!!) decide between two qualified, principled, candidates of integrity who aren't so dagblasted deaf-in-the-ears when people express alternative approaches and opinions!