Progressives have fallen into a trap. Emboldened by President Bush's plummeting approval ratings, progressives increasingly point to Bush's "failures" and label him and his administration as incompetent...The idea that Bush is incompetent is a curious one. Consider the following (incomplete) list of major initiatives the Bush administration, with a loyal conservative Congress, has accomplished:*Centralizing power within the executive branch to an unprecedented degree
*Starting two major wars, one started with questionable intelligence and in a manner with which the military disagreed
*Placing on the Supreme Court two far-right justices, and stacking the lower federal courts with many more
*Cutting taxes during wartime, an unprecedented event
*Passing a number of controversial bills such as the PATRIOT Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, the Medicare Drug bill, the Bankruptcy bill and a number of massive tax cuts
*Rolling back and refusing to enforce a host of basic regulatory protections
*Appointing industry officials to oversee regulatory agencies...
These aren't signs of incompetence. As should be painfully clear, the Bush administration has been overwhelmingly competent in advancing its conservative vision. It has been all too effective in achieving its goals by determinedly pursuing a conservative philosophy.
It's not Bush the man who has been so harmful, it's the conservative agenda. (full article here)
