I agree with you, Art. The things that Bush has done right are such obvious things that failure to have done them could legitimately be called treason. Yes, of course we chase Al Qaeda back to Afghanistant and beat the crap out of them. Yes, we tighten up our border security (people, goods, and communications). Obviously.

It's the things that aren't obvious, the discretionary moves dreamt up by Bush, that have proven the most disastrous. Invading Iraq is of course Exhibit A.

The two categories don't exist in isolation. The fixation on Saddam Hussein and then four years of trying to protect Bush's "legacy" and Republican political power in general have undermined the obvious things we should be doing. Border security could be tighter, especially at seaports. We ended up with an inconclusive outcome in Afghanistan by shifting forces out too early to invade Iraq, and that sore is still festering.

Then there are the things that were correct to do, but were screwed up by ideology. The "Patriot" Act goes too far and gives too much license to authoritarian impulses. Some recent FBI statistics on use of it show that it isn't just a tool to fight terrorism, but through inevitable mission creep, has been used in other non-terrorism categories of crime such as money laundering and drug smuggling. The point isn't that those things are crimes too, but that without the "P"A the Constitution would've been in full force and those prosecutions wouldn't have happened. Fighting crime by violating the Constitution takes us down an evil road indeed.

And gawd, the disastrous consequences of Bush's ideologically-driven foreign policy is worth several pages all by itself. I applaud Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats for stepping in to try to fix the damage.

Bush has done fairly well at the things he's had no choice but to do, and he's been an utter disaster when he's tried to think for himself. He's way out of his depth. We'd have been better off the last six years with an empty White House and a government running on autopilot.