The pundits are out in force and the media seems mesmerized by Bush's lies. So what's a voter to do when faced with the prospect of finding John Ashcroft in your bedroom at 3 a.m.? The Bush administration's upcoming presidential election will be a single-issue platform though it will be layered with multiple buzz words. The platform? Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. Bush will argue that his is the only way to free the world of terrorism and the Democrats will go soft on the effort to rid the world of nasty bastards like Osama bin Laden.

The buzz words will be terrorism, Iraq and 9-11. Wht else can the GOP do? The national economic plan (whatever it is) is a failure. The goofy tax rebates – pure Texas politics, pure payola on a gigantic scale, is looking like the terrible idea it always was and is.

And our standing on the world stage is shakier by the day. Even our allies are distancing themselves from our policies, and I don't mean only in Iraq.

But Bush's big stick is the war on terrorism and he will use it to good effect, I've no doubt.

The GOP is making it nearly traitorous to criticize the president and his administration, and neat hat trick.

With very little additional tooling, the Republicans ought to be able to convince the electorate that its' patriotic duty will be to vote for Bush, Afghanistan's savior (though we don't seem to be able to find Osama bin Laden, nor have we been able to truly oust the Taliban), and the man who single-handedly ousted the horrible Saddam Hussein. Did you really think that politics played no role in the decision to ignore the U.N. and most of our allies' reticence to invade Iraq? Sorry. I think it was a calculated risk to build Bush's image as a true-blue American individual who makes decisions unencumbered by meddling foreigners, though we badly need those foreigners' aid.

So, as long as there's not another terrorist action on U.S. soil, and maybe even if there is, Bush can point out how much safer we are with him in office, though I would argue that's an improvable fact.

But fear, it seems, is a powerful motivator and a valuable factor when one is trying to convince the public that its welfare is protected by a 'caring' government that knows best what's needed to maintain an umbrella of protection.

Never mind that the so-called Patriot Act of 2001, and its second installment, Patriot Act II, tramples the Constitutional rights of Americans. No one seems to care. As long as bearded, nasty, anti-American zealots with bombs don't get a chance to blow up your child's daycare center, the electorate will be happy to put on blinders and divorce itself from Constitutional questions, which I find selfish, idiotic and, what's worse, traitorous. What are we doing to protect the rights of our children and theirs when we give John Ashcroft and the Department of Justice free reign over our private lives in the name of personal safety?

Maybe Americans always have been sheep-like and stupid, but I don't want to think so.

I do think that 9-11 so traumatized many of my generation (yea, the baby boomers), who've never had to suffer like our grandparents and theirs did, that we hid our collective heads in the sand and continue to do so today.

Now is Bush an evil man? Probably, but not in the religious sense.

To my way of thinking, Bush is prone to cowboy politics; shoot first and ask questions later. His brand of nationalism tends toward isolationism, a doctrine that I thought had died with President Woodrow Wilson. It's tough to detect the isolationist bent during this troubled time, especially since most Americans are happy to thumb their noses at the rest of the world – mimicking the president's own flagrant arrogance as expressed in nearly every decision he's made vis a vis international politics since 9-11.

But America is becoming more and more isolated every day and that's a direct result of the Bush Doctrine.

So I say to the Democratic contenders in the race for the White House, good luck. You'll need it. But more than luck, you'll need an unshakeable desire to beat Bush, and a platform that's simple enough for middle America to understand. One that both separates you from the Bush Doctrine but embraces the safety of America in this world of terrorists and Islamic paranoia.

Good luck, indeed!

Check out the Dem's blog site. One hopes the party lives up to the title they chose for the site.