of the super power he inherited and over-reached around the world. He learned a bit about far places -- Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, North Korea -- and then personally declared war on them, war on the cheap. A classified report being prepared for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "Operation Iraqi Freedom Strategic Lessons Learned," obtained by Rowan Scarborough of The Washington Times, discusses the search for weapons of mass destruction and concludes: "WMD elimination and exploitation planning efforts did not occur early enough in the process ... Insufficient U.S. government assets existed to accomplish the mission."

2. In the process of going to war, GWB began mocking and pushing around old allies like a school yard bully. Then he was surprised when they -- beginning with France, Germany and Russia -- began pushing back.

3. Rushing in as fools are said to do, GWB has tied down the greatest military in the history of the world. Ours. Half our combat-ready army is looking for snipers and bombers in unruly countries that look as tribal as they were a century ago when the British failed as imperialists in the same sand and mountains.

4. GWB dissed the United Nations (and, again, our allies) and now is coming back to ask everyone else to help clean up the mess he made.

5. "He" -- we always overstate presidential power over the domestic economy -- has "lost" 2 million jobs here at home as the stock market went south.

6. GWB is presiding over the economic decline of millions of American families -- and not only the poor ones left behind long ago. Take a look at the new book "The Two-Income Trap" by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi, published by Basic Books. Comparing the early 1970s with the early 2000s, the authors report that a typical family with only the husband working earned $38,700 30 years ago, and after fixed expenses like shelter, food, transportation and taxes, had $17,834 to spend for tuitions and other incidentals. Now, with both husband and wife working (if they're lucky) and earning $67,800, the fixed expenses total $50,755 and $17,045 is left to pay for everything else. (That's all in constant dollars.)

7. GWB is a "big government" big spender, compared to, say, his predecessor, Bill Clinton. The Center for Public Service at The Brookings Institution, directed by Paul Light, has just issued a report indicating that the number of federal employees and contractors is increasing for the first time since the 1980s, led by a 43 percent increase in employees of defense contractors feeding on federal contracts.

8. GWB is running a "borrow as you go" government, exploding the national debt by hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars compared to Clinton-era surpluses. Given the choice of "tax and spend" or "borrow and spend," he has chosen to pass the bill on to new generations.

9. GWB's environmental record is comic, confirmed when Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" showed him walking through a national park filled with "future two-by-fours."

10. GWB lies a lot.

At least, these are the things that Democratic candidates for president should be saying. The one coming closest is Howard Dean, he of thin credentials and not much to lose, and that has made him the Democratic front-runner at this moment.

That shows Democrats are not totally clueless, but this moment is not yet election time. Many Democrats, and some Republicans, too, might agree that Bush has not been a very successful chief executive or commander-in-chief, but is he more impressive and more trustworthy than whoever the Democrats finally chose as his opponent? After all, assuming the economy begins to improve and there are more jobs out there, the president may well look a lot better than he does at the end of this summer of our discontent.

"No one is above the law, not even the sitting president" - Ken Starr

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