Thankgiving 2005: Grateful for the President's Sinking Approval

It is Thanksgiving and we should be grateful that more and more Americans disapprove of President Bush's job performance.

George W. Bush once said that he doesn't read books -- he reads people. He trusts his gut in assessing character. Likewise, many Americans who once gave him the benefit of the doubt are now trusting the instinct that tells them that the president and his cronies have leaned hard on intelligent sources to provide them with information that would justify what the administration had already decided to do: Invade Iraq.

Americans are growing wiser to Bush and company and I'm grateful for that growing insight. If it should continue, then perhaps Congress will speak up more and put hurdles and impediments in front of Bush initiatives. If he cannot be impeached, then he can at least be neutralized -- grounded, if you will -- sent to his room so he can do no more damage.

I am grateful that a growing number of Americans see the Bush team as the Boy-who-cried-wolf. In this case, "wolf" means "You're evil if you disagree with us."

Thankfully, America isn't so easily swindled this time around.

We bought the Bush deceit at first. Hungrily, perhaps, in our desire for leadership in times of trial after the terrorist attacks.

But it is like we as a nation had become someone who was robbed and violated, then robbed and violated again by the very person we turned to for help.

So it seems we are still a trusting nation, albeit an easily misled population. Well shame on us, including Congress, for going along so easily with the White House whose disrespect for us meant they felt obliged to say only "trust us" when it came to decisions that affect us all.

I am grateful that many Americans have discovered, or rediscovered after their groggy nap, our obligations to be informed citizens, to hold our leaders in check, to expect our leaders to oversee each other, and to demand dialogue when important matters are about to take place.

Americans are wiser at a great cost for having permitted a machinery to take hold that puts into place a sputtering leadership that would brook no dissent, explain no motives, and assassinate the characters of those who dast speak up against them.

The next three years will be nauseating. The lesson we learn from this eight year fiasco will be enlightening beyond description.