by James Glaser
December 21, 2004

The Commander in Chief will not be in the field with the Troops this Christmas. Reports say he will be at Camp David and then off to the ranch in Texas. Being President is hard, maybe not as hard as the Marines have it, who have been trying to take Fallujah for the last six weeks, but hard enough that the man needs a rest.

Monday President Bush had a rare news conference. It is a tradition every year, just before flying off to relax for the holidays, every President speaks to the media for a few minutes.

President Bush told the nation that he knows that the Iraqi troops we are training to take over from our troops are less that adequate. He said that, "When the heat got on, they left the battlefield." George even said, "That is unacceptable." What he didn't say was that many Iraqi troops don't even make to the battlefield, as they desert before a battle even starts.

Here at home President Bush used the same tired old line so many politicians have been using for decades. He said he would submit a budget that will cut the deficit in half in five years. No, George is not talking about cutting our almost 8 trillion dollar National Debt, all he is saying he will do, is keep spending hundreds of billions of dollars more than we have, thus raising the National Debt, but not by as much as he would have, if he didn't cut spending in half. Many Republicans think this cutting the deficit in half is a pipe dream.

Remember just before George Bush became President, the Republicans and Bill Clinton BALANCED the BUDGET and even made a token payment on the National Debt. George came to town and has had greater deficit spending than any other President in history. George said he would now, "maintain strict discipline in spending tax dollars." This year alone, George spent 477 billion dollars more than we had and Congress had to raise their own self imposed debt ceiling by 800 billion.

Republican John McCain, talking about spending under Bush's direction said, "It's a system that's completely out of control and it's an absolute disgrace." McCain said Congress was spending money like "drunken sailors."

George went on to say that he wants to borrow trillions of more dollars so that Wall Street can make billions off his new Social Security Fixit Plan that has individual investment accounts. He didn't say it just like that, but that is what he is doing and hey, Wall Street put up the money for his campaign, and in America that means they get what they want. Their boy won. Of course Kerry was their boy too.

When asked about Donald Rumsfeld, his Secretary of Defense, George said, "He's doing a very fine job." Because of that statement many Americans believe that George Bush is back doing cocaine and having a beer and a bump for breakfast.

So while George is trying to cut his spending deficit in half, we will continue to keep our troops in Iraq, spending about 5 billion extra each month to do that plus every so often Bush will ask for another 80 billion or so supplemental. On top of that we will be spending billions more, keeping our troops in Afghanistan, where our boy Hamid Karzai has control of the capital city, Kabul, but in the rest of the country, the Opium War Lords still rule.

No, George Bush did not hand out any thoughts of peace or hope that our troops might come home any time soon, but he did look real happy. When he was asked about the foul up with naming New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik to be the Homeland Security Secretary, Bush said, "I'm going to find somebody who knows something about intelligence, and (is) capable and honest and ready to do the job." Isn't that a nice hopeful answer to end on?