The politicians do treat the electorate like idiots, don’t they? Why is it that we’re so accepting that our elected representatives are liars, such that we no longer turn a hair when we hear of evidence of same?

“Sorry, guys, I tried! Now off to Tijuana since I no longer have responsibilities and a generous pension! Not to mention the sweet presidential pajamas!”

I think the Republicans have done a horrible job of dealing with the budget and the deficit, and I think voters will punish them for it in Nov 2006.

I never thought I would be typing this; but, here we should be more fair to Dubya. The current deficits are only about one seventh as large as a couple of the deficits this country ran during World War II. I don’t think it’s particularly wise for progressives to criticize Bush on the deficits. If we truly wish to pull the U.S. out of Iraq, end the threats against Chavez, etc., and end these resource wars, we will then have to make the decision to eliminate all use of oil and natural gas as soon as possible. Such a massive and immediate power switch means that it would be beneficial, and probably even necessary, for the federal government to run substantially larger deficits for the next few years.