Ok, I defended Bush and his administration in the last post. Now it’s time to bash them.

I don’t know that much about Bush, personally; but my sense is that he’s probably basically a decent guy. He’s certainly not as dumb as many liberals would like to believe, but probably not as clever as many conservatives would like to believe. I think we’re pretty lucky that he was president during 9/11 because he and his advisors have a good sense of what the problem is and how it must be faced.

But, I’m not one of those who is comforted by his religion-guided sense of morality. It bothers me a lot. It’s a bit scary to me that he seems to believe that he’s on a mission from God. I’m disturbed by his proclamations about how “America” has decided to act to do various things to address all the badness in the world (as evidenced on his recent trip to Africa). He is not America. He’s its servant. He should remember whose money and lives he is committing.

And his economic policy is immoral. Republicans complain about the problems of big government, and have always blamed the Democrats. But now we have a Republican-controlled White House, Senate, House of Representatives and we have record-breaking overspending. We’ve seen huge agricultural subsidies, tarrifs on steel and timber, new drug benefits, etc. It’s an attack on the economy and economic liberty of the country; now and in the far future, all for the sake of winning the next election. It’s awful.

Perhaps I’m wrong and this is all an incredibly clever scheme to fight big government. Perhaps this is necessary to gain a stronger control of the congress, and make it politically feasible to address the crisis that this will help bring about; with massive cuts to spending, regulations, and programs; as well as the approval of liberty-respecting Supreme Court nominees.

This is a case where I hope I’m wrong. But I suspect I’m not.