[Txsleuth]

Yes...it has gone awry...but, do you think Pres. Bush is responsible...or is it an institutional thing...because of employees that don't leave during the change of Administrations...so they do things like LEAK stuff if they don't like the current POTUS.

Or, in the case of Clinton...cover things up..or don't go after things because they LIKE the POTUS??

Look at the grief that he and Rummy have gotten over trying to restructure the military into the type we need to fight the kind of wars we have now..as opposed to in the WW's of the past.

He has tried to overhaul Social Security and even HIS party went against him....he tried to get some kind of reform in the education system for teachers and students to advance on MERIT...instead of the old way of just shuffling kids through with bad teachers.

He is getting grief..when it was Kennedy and other dems that screwed it up...and asked for a LOT more money.

IOW...Newt sure wants to point out the faults of others..and what hasn't gotten done...but he sure was in Congress himself...did he call hearings to clean up the bureaucracy??

[aligncare]

You are correct about Newt -- once a politician, always a politician. You ask the right questions.

I fault President Bush for representing himself as a conservative while he campaigned; but he governed as a moderate-to-liberal once in office. (His reaction to 9-11 was independent of political ideology. Any American president would have reponded the same way and gone to war -- even Clinton -- god help me for saying that).