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After he wins in '04 - look for the more controversial conservative initiatives to be put in place to be built on by the following GOP president.

I seriously doubt this will be the case. For one thing, Presidents in their second term have much less political capitol. The last couple of years are usually spent on foreign policy achievements because they can no longer effect the domestic agenda.

Second, nothing extremely controversial or conservative will be suggested because Bush doesn't want anything controversial. It is not his style. He does not see the need for a drastic reformation of the relationship between government and America. That is just the way it is. Only occasionally do Americans elect someone who completely upends the existing political dynamic. Roosevelt, Reagan, Jackson, and possibly L. Johnson come to mind.

Bush's main legacy will be the crippling of worldwide terrorism, and that is nothing to shake a stick at. There will be proud moments.

You may be right about the fact that a second term president is not to be feared and therefore has less capital, but, I sure don't feel Bush avoids controversy.

If he tried to avoid controversy, he would have been in favor of Kyoto, he would have allowed the U.N. to continue to allocate the U.S. dollars, he would not have proposed drilling in Anwar, he would be for abortion, for stem cell research, for PBA and he would have left in place all the environmental binding ties on this nation. Yet, he took unpopular stands on each of these issues.

I'm not speaking of you - but I resent all these complainers that expect this president to counter all attacks on us, mount a war, bring about needed changes in our institutions AND totally wipe out all "in place" government agencies. I feel handling a major reorganization in agencies that defend this nation and in the process insuring that competent, loyal people are in those positions is an extremely major contribution.

To continually lambast him because he does not do away with all government largesse as he handles the major problems he has been handed is naive in my opinion.