How are Dubya and the boys doing?

It hasn't been a very good six months or so for President Bush and the Republican Congress, as indicated by the information that will follow.

By the way most of this information is "factual", based on polling and hard numbers obtained by objective sources, rather than the information used by some of our readers based on " the opinions of others" that support their own.

For example, you will never see me quote "facts" from Michael Moore's controversial new movie, "Fahrenheit 911", because it is not an objective (looking at both sides) analysis of the President's performance.

Nor will I be using "factual" information gained from the book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, A Fair and Balanced Look At the Right," by Al Franken, nor David Brock's book, "Blinded By The Right."

Even though some of this information may be correct and some may suit my own political persuasion, it is not absolute "fact" or "truth" because it was written with a particular perspective in mind. When we do that, we tend to pay attention only to the information that supports our point of view and conveniently ignore the information that doesn't. That kind of slanted information only preaches to the choir and does nothing to inform those who don't see the world in the same way.

Five particular areas of concern have developed for the President and the Republican led Congress lately.

The AP Economic Figures indicate that consumers have slashed their spending by the largest amount in three years. This latest snapshot was much weaker than economists were expecting. Consumer spending ac-counts for roughly two-thirds of all economic activity in the United States, so it plays a key role in shaping an economic recovery. And it always plays a role in presidential politics because people are more likely to vote their pocketbooks than any other reason.

Secondly, according to Reuters," U.S. employers added a paltry 32,000 workers to payroll last month, the government said this past Friday in a startlingly weak report. The Labor Department also cuts its tally of job growth in May and June by a combined 61,000, adding to the weak tenor of a report that came as unwelcome news for an election-bound President Bush." Wall Street economists polled last week had looked for a payroll gain of 228,000. The economy is still down 1.1 million jobs since the president took office, the worse since Herbert Hoover was President. In fact, no president since Hoover has seen ANY job loss during his tenure. The second worst job creation record belongs to the President's father, George Herbert Walker Bush, when jobs grew at an annual rate of 0.4 percent.

By comparison, 22.7 million new jobs were created during Clinton's eight years in office, an annual rate of increase of 2.6 percent. I remember the retort by conservatives during Clinton's presidency that all the good things that were happening were because of the Republican-led Congress. It's still a Republican led Congress with a Republican in the White House as well. So, using the logic of conservatives during the Clinton years, if the President has nothing to do with job growth, then I suppose it's time to elect a Democratic Congress. The critics can't have it both ways.

Thirdly, the Reuters News Agency also reports that information that led to a heightened terror alert was at least three years old and some of the information pre-dated 9-11. This heightened terror alert was seen by some Democratic partisans as an attempt to deflect attention away from the recently completed Democratic convention in which John Kerry gave a good accounting of himself in his acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination. Former President Clinton recently said on the David Letterman show that he did not think the raised terror alert was done for political purposes.

Now, the answer to this question IS left to our own devices and opinions since it's impossible to see inside the minds of people who make these decisions.

However, the number of heightened alerts we've had recently reminds me of the little boy who cried wolf once too often and when the wolf finally did appear, no one believed him. It seems counterproductive to me to issue nation-wide alerts when the information gathered points to specific and localized areas.

Why alarm people in Oregon for something that may or may not happen in New York or New Jersey? Secure those facilities as best we can and do whatever we can do to prevent an attack. Nationwide alerts should only be issued when the threats and information are non-specific and, consequently, could happen anywhere.

Fourthly, the public vulgar utterances of Bush and Cheney surely puts political activists from the Religious Right on the spot. How can they continue to support a ticket where barn-yard language is used to refer to a reporter during the last campaign and a United States Senator just a few weeks ago? If the religious right is concerned with morality above everything else, how do they continue to justify a pair running for the highest elective office in the land who obviously, by their words and behavior, aren't adhering to the same standard?

Finally, the President's approval ratings are hovering just around the 50 percent mark. Some polling organizations show him slightly above 50 percent, others slightly below. Since 1900, no president has ever been re-elected with approval ratings below 50 percent and no president has ever been defeated for re-election with approval ratings above 50 percent.

Much of this drop in the president's approval rating can be directly traced to our continued involvement in Iraq and the deaths and injuries our young men and women continue to suffer. Almost half of all service men and women deaths since the beginning of the Iraqi War have occurred to soldiers living in towns of less than 25,000 population across the United States. This has a tremendous impact on the psyche of these communities. It is not rare to read that entire towns shut down to attend the funeral of a fallen soldier. When the reasons initially given for going to war have been proven to be without merit, small communities react with anger and outrage. And the end to the killing is not yet in sight.

Typically, people keep their jobs or are replaced based on job performance. If they're meeting or exceeding the standard set for a particular position, they get to keep working. If they're not, they're replaced. That's the way it works for practically every employer in this country. In regards to politics, we, the people, are the employer.

So, whether it's the war or the economy, or the dignity of the office, President Bush appears to have a lot of shoring up to do in the next three months if he is to keep HIS job.