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I'm with you. I'm as annoyed as anyone with GW's domestic policies, which have been mostly designed to steal issues from the Democrats. This mostly means enacting their policies before they do it themselves.

Of course with a 50-50 country, and a 50-50 congress, with at least half a dozen Repubs guaranteed to vote Democrat on any issue, you can only rule if you manage to get at least a handful of Democrats to cross the line your way. That is the conundrum. Our problem isn't that Bush is not conservative enough, our problem is that if he were conservative enough, he would never have been elected in the first place. Our problem is that at least half of our neighbors do not believe in the things we believe in, and fewer do as time goes on.

But Gore would not have rejected the Kyoto Treaty. Gore would not have rejected the International Criminal Court's jurisdiction over US agents. Gore would not have acted against the UN's will in Iraq and Afghanistan. Gore would not have overthrown Saddam. He would probably not have overthrown the Taliban. He would most likely have continued the previous policy of treating guerilla attacks as a criminal matter, and would probably tried to have handled it all through the Hague.

Saddam would be in his palace, Khadaffi would be building his nukes, we would still be tied to the Saudis in order to continue our failing policy of containing Saddam when even our allies no longer respected the containment.

If Kerry takes office all of those things will happen. The UN will direct our foreign policy, and our troops. Our troops will be within the jurisdiction of Belgian and Dutch and Spanish judges. The UN which has proven itself inept in Rwanda, the Congo, and the Balkans will be placed in charge of Iraq and the Baath will return to power within his first term of office.

As for the rest, the domestic issues that drive me nuts, there is nothing to be done unless and until I am able to send a Republican senator to Washington from my state, which is impossible because I am well in the minority here, ideologically speaking. So GW will have to work with the tools we send him.