You may believe that this president is innately good. This is all fine and good. But at this point in this presidency it is entirely reasonable to find the man suspect. We are in an occupation that we were told wouldn't be needed. We are flushing hundreds of billions on this occupation and "reconstruction" that was supposed to be paid for by Iraqi oil. We are loosing more lives after the 'end of major combat operations' and at least some of us believe that domestic issues, like the economy for the average worker, are even worse.

I don't recall being told that the occupation would not be neccessary. I recall Bush saying it would be hard and long.

The comments on the billions is right on point. I said from the outset that war is unacceptable anymore since there are no spoils and no nation can afford the cost of high tech military operations. It seemed logical that in the long run the oil wealth of Iraq would help offset the cost and benefit the Iraqi people and compensate us somewhat for our financial burden. If this proves out to be innaccurate it is a serious miscalculation that must be accountable.

No matter how much I supported the war on the basis of regime change, failure is not an option and I expect Bush to have his ducks in a row to that end.

As far as the cartoon on community is concerned, it was funny but some of us felt that the community board was a place to talk about our family etc. and things unrelated to the devisive outside world. Overall it is no biggy but I can see how it may have offended Rob. The justifed response should have been on flame but even writing about it makes me feel silly. Like this microcosm deserves all this analytical attention?