[Torie]

You do realize that one can not hate Bush, and indeed even like him as a person, and yet worry about his competence don't you? You do realize that that is the point of view of a significant cohort of American voters at present don't you? If not, the I guess you are right, and the polls ersatz.

[pollyannaish]

I think it is perfectly legitimate to question any President's competence. In fact, President Reagan's competence was intensely question in his second term...and he had approval ratings lower than President Bush has.

That said, I disagree that the President is incompetent. I believe that there comes a point when it is nearly impossible to fight the hysterical, imbalanced onslaught with any effectiveness. There are undoubtedly weak spots on his team. But there are on all teams. At this point, he is doing the best he can to turn it around, but focused more on actually getting the job done reaping results. In his mind, it is the results that will be important in the end, not what people are thinking on a Saturday afternoon in March.

The bottom line is, we will never know how well he has done for several years and perhaps a decade. But I will stand by my prediction that when his time comes, we will end up seeing similar outpouring of gratitude and respect for this President, as we did for President Reagan. The press will be stunned and amazed. They will discuss how intelligent he was after all. They won't quite know what to do with themselves.

All because this President does not take the easy, poll driven route. He is doing the right thing, the hard thing in order to change the world down the road. The fact that there is still a man like that in today's world is frankly, amazing. I for one, am grateful NOW. It's so easy to lose sight of on a daily basis. But the long view, frankly is impressive.