Im a Texan and proud of it. I am also pretty liberal in my social views. I have met GWB on a couple of occasions and have never been terribly impressed with either his intellect or his ability.

My opinion goes here :

We were sold a bill of goods about the necessity of a military solution in Iraq. There was no reason to invade this country, there was no reason to stay and there is no good reason to escalate our involvement at this point.

There is no military solution to the problem of international terrorism.

Our biggest and most pressing problem is not Al Queda, Hezbollah or any of the other half dozen self proclaimed radical islamic groups. Our biggest and most pressing problem is the fact that 70% of our domestic oil consumption is dependent on, basically six countries, two of which are admittedly hostile to the United States (Venezuela, Iran) Two of which are on shakey diplomatic grounds (Mexico, Nigeria) and one who, in my opinion is questionable (Saudi Arabia) and one who should be one of our closest allies (Canada). For your information, you can look at the list of the top 15 oil importers to the US here (http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/p...nt/import.html)

Were it not for the economic and societal drain caused by the war in Iran, we would more than likely be posting an excess in the federal budget rather than record deficits.

If Iran and North Korea were not almost positive that the US cannot sustain another major military action in the world, we would be much closer to a diplomatic resolution to the problems in these two countries.

OK . . I could go on . . but I think you get the feel for my stance on the Bush presidency and his brand of diplomacy and leadership.

Climbs down off soapbox and kicks it back under the table.

// RANT OFF//

TDS