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I'll be the first to admit that immigration is a huge issue, that W hasn't addressed it, and that he doesn't appreciate the scope of the problem. It is by far his biggest weakness.

There have been stories (one was posted here) of Iraqis caught in Texas whose mission was to try to assassinate W at his ranch (admittedly a pretty crazy plan, but no one said they were are geniuses). There have also been stories that more Iraqis and terrorists are coming over the Mexican border.

I can only hope that this news, along with the clear lack of support from Vicente Fox for Op IF, shake W out of his complacency on the issue. I'm not optimistic on this one. We may have to wait for Gen X and Gen Y to save out bacon on this one too.

On spending, I think W determined that he couldn't fight the spending battles and the war on terror at the same time. Although that war is far from over, he should be able to spend the political capital he has built up to get control of spending. We'll have to see if he has the will.

I'm not happy with the 15 bil spent on AIDS either, unless WE totally control how the money is spent, and the money is spent on the right things.

As to civil liberties, I think privacy disappeared in the mid-90s and isn't coming back anytime soon. I also think Ashcroft and the FBI are doing a lot of things behind the scenes to specifically target potential terrorists that we never hear about. It's almost a miracle that there have been no more significant domestic terrorist acts since 09-11-01.

I disagree with you on NAFTA. If it was so bad, why did unemployment drop to 30-40 year lows in the mid-late 90s? If we controlled the borders, Vicente Fox wouldn't be able to offload his awful economic problems onto us and would have to solve them internally. The economics of comparative advantage would then work how they should.

And yes, W is benfitting so greatly because of the inevitable comparisons to his predecessor.

I can only hope that this news, along with the clear lack of support from Vicente Fox for Op IF, shake W out of his complacency on the issue. I'm not optimistic on this one. We may have to wait for Gen X and Gen Y to save out bacon on this one too.

Thanks for your reasoned response. For the most part I agree with you however, on the above, if it takes that long to address America's Immigration Crisis it will probably be too late to undo the damage. By that time, given the present massive flow of immigration (legal and illegal), America will no longer be a sovereign country and large regions of America's Southwest will be directly under the control of Mexico's thoroughly corrupt to the core government (some areas of CA are already there).

Also, in regards to associating NAFTA with the high employment rates during the 90s there is little doubt that the staggering technology and telecommunications boom (now bust) was by far the central factor there. This boom covered up a lot of economic problems including NAFTA.

Until George Bush starts addressing America's growing domestic problems I see little reason to be optimistic about America's future. And Time Is Running Out...Quick.