Reality

President Bush, on a campaign swing in the West, is arguing the Democratic Party is weak-kneed on national security and shouldn't be trusted to hold the reins of Congress saying, "if you listen closely to some of the leaders of the Democratic Party, it sounds like -- it sounds like -- they think the best way to protect the American people is, wait until we're attacked again," as reported by CNN.

It has been a tough start to the week for the president. Persistent questions about a recent intelligence report that suggests the Iraq war has helped recruit more terrorists, and a new book, "State of Denial," by journalist Bob Woodward contends Bush misled the country about the war and in the latest development, a State Department official confirmed that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did receive a CIA briefing about terror threats just about two months before the Sept. 11 attacks. These events have been overshadowed in equal measure by the scandal of Republican Congressman Mark Foley.

However, as President Bush delivered the administration's oft-repeated claims about the Democrats it hoped that reality soon sets in. It has been the president’s own Party, in control of the Senate, that has blocked most of the Administrations recent national security initiatives NOT the Democrats. Moreover, it was this president who in his 2002 State of the Union Address publicly stated flawed intelligence as reason to go to war with Iraq, and as far back as 2002 Mr. Richard Clarke, former Intelligence Czar under the Clinton Administration, and in charge of the White House situation room on September 11, 2001 explained in detail the Bush Administrations lack of interest in the various threat warnings prior to attacks in his book Against All Enemies.

Of course with any scandal there is unintentional blowback upon the leader of the Party, who happens to be the president. As breaking news suggest the psychology behind such actions (alleged molestation as a child) and questions about House Speaker Hastert’s ability to rule over the House of Representatives, least of all his own Party members in its chamber there is much to write and talk about. However, with less than six weeks before the Congressional mid-term elections it is just plain incorrect for the president to blame problems within his personal control as well as his Party’s on the opposition.