Truth be told, Bush ought not to have been president anyway. Now it's time that fate catches up with him, and he leaves the office.

And why, ye Republicans might ask?

Because he has not been leading America in a healthy direction.

He has (or at least tried to)

-Mandate the overdemanding "No Child Left Behind" program while at the same time cutting funding from public schools.

-Sent troops to war yet cut armed forces' pay and veteran benefits.

-Started with the biggest tax surplus in history and eventually created the largest national debt in history

-He had the audacity to call an unconstitutional policy "The Patriot Act," asserting that his definition of patriotism was the only true one.

And with regard to the war, I'm not sure I'd put a whole lot of blame on him directly for the WMD claim that turned out to be a load of bull. The CIA had been overzealous to prove a falsehood, and Bush liked what he heard from them.

Iraq needed help, and Hussein needed to go away, but we probably could've gone about it with a much better way. If Bush had been smart, he would've been sneaky about it. The CIA has committed sneaky acts before and arranged displacements of government (read: assassinations or coups). If Bush had been smart, he would've invaded Iraq with a crack-team of assassins, gotten rid of Hussein, and then rebuilt the country quickly with newleadership without having to bomb the place and ruin the infrastructure.

History would've hated Bush for it, but from a leadership standpoint, it would've been more cost-effective and less deadly. Instead, Bush went to Iraq with guns blazing, instilling a fear in the general public of a foreign threat that didn't exist. He got there and got Saddam, but he had no realistic plans for how to rebuild Iraq. Colin Powell had said from the beginning that we don't have the resources to do this, and Bush ignored him for so long that Colin just gave up saying it.

We can't keep Bush in office. Not only do we need a feasible rebuilding of Iraq, we need to rebuild our own country. We need to bring back jobs in this nation. We need to bring back trust in the office of the President. We need a president who can write his own speeches, or at least not sound like an idiot when he reads off a speechcard.

And as for the alternatives...

I am generally unimpressed with Dr. Dean. Hee-aaaah!
Kucinich doesn't have a chance in the world, and he's more liberal than most healthy human beings ought to be.
Sharpton doesn't really want to be president, he just wants delegates at the Democratic National Convention to have influence on the party platform. I respect that.
Kerry seems like a decent guy. And Clark is very responsible.

But I've been in support of Edwards from the beginning. I've actually met the guy, and that makes a world of difference. He hasn't been the most notable of senators here in North Carolina, but he did his job to the best of his ability while juggling the presidential race at the same time.

My only problem is this... I'm registered as an independent, and in North Carolina, only party members can vote in the primary. And I don't particularly feel like joining the Democratic party.... by the time we get a primary it'll be pretty much decided anyway.