worth noting a long time insider's viewpoint,

"I can tell you this categorically, we've got the weakest president and weakest government in the history of my 50 years of public service. Karl Rove tells him to do this or do that or whatever it is, but he's out campaigning. ... And at the national level, we've got Enron accounting galore. The President said two weeks ago on page one of his budget report that we have a $455 billion deficit at the end of next month; that's when the end of the fiscal year terminates. The truth of the matter is, you turn to page 57 of the report and you'll see it's $698 billion. ... I had to make a talk on trade last week, and I looked it up and found out that at the end of World War II we had 40 percent of our workforce in manufacturing. And now we're down to 10 percent. We've got 10 percent of the country working and producing, and we've got the other 90 percent talking and eating. That's all they're doing."

- Retiring Senator Fritz Hollings (SC-D)

Interesting perspective, and apparently with a great deal of validity..