eil Young is getting along in years. His musical career has spanned more than four decades. He was of the '60's generation, a socially crusading rocker who still has the fire in the belly to say what needs to be said in his lyrics. He's had it with this war and the man who invented it for whatever reasons. His current album titled "Living With War" is aimed at George W. Bush. In fact the most significant track includes the following lyric: "Let's impeach the President for abusing all the power we gave him and shipping all our money out the door. Let's impeach the president for bending the facts to fit their new story of why we have to send our men to war". The sensitive man is most supportive of our troops and wants "Living With War" to be something more than just a protest - Young wants it to reflect the public comments he's encountered from folk in all parts of the country and all walks of life.

"Have you seen the flags of freedom?
What color are they now"
Do you think that you believe in yours, more than they believe in theirs."
"Shock and Awe" angers the man ...and many of us. "Mission Accomplished," likewise.
The president doesn't read newspapers, I wonder if he will listen to and take to heart the lyrics of a passionate rocker?

Rolling Stone published, this week, a story by one of America's leading historians, Sean Wilentz, titled "The Worst President in History." There appears to be little to argue against the conviction that the Bush administration is a failure. The general public, having once given him the highest approval ratings ever recorded, now seems to be feeling that his administration has failed in almost every way. Even the venerable William F. Buckley, the man credited by many to be the founder of the modern conservative movement, wrote a critique, just two months ago, which included the following, "one can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed."
What has succeeded? The man who came to office in 2001 pledging to govern as a "compassionate conservative" and a "uniter not a divider," shows no compassion and is a most divisive leader.
Having inherited the largest federal surplus in this nation's history at the start of his tenure, he has turned it into the largest deficit ever.
He still claims that he'll be able to cut the federal deficits in half by 2009, and that the best way to guarantee this would be to make permanent his tax cuts - which helped bring about the deficit in the first place!
Former Republican strategist and author Kevin Phillips calls the GOP of our time, "The first religious party in U.S. history."

John Podhoretz, writing in the New York Post, made a point to ponder, if the Secretary of Defense were to leave office now, it would effectively destroy the Bush presidency. As he reasoned, a hostile press corps would certainly interpret his departure as an admission that the war was a mistake from the start, and could not be won. By publicly challenging the Sec.of Defense, the generals are challenging the cherished principle that the military answers to civilians. I wish that Rumsfeld had long ago retired, but I am opposed to it being brought about by a revolt of the generals.

When he was National Security Advisor to former President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski was a most approachable member of the cabinet. He accepted many of my invitations to speak on the air. He's as cogent and thoughtful now as he was those many administrations ago. Under the heading of "It is time to plan for an American withdrawal from Iraq," he laid out his idea for bringing this about in the Financial Times. He began by saying that he thought that the Bush administration is probably right in asserting that the ongoing violence in Iraq is not yet a civil war but rather a fragmentary civil strife that could escalate into a civil war. He concluded the piece writing the following; "The US needs to recognize that its intervention in Iraq is becoming part of a wider, dangerous collision between America and the Muslim world - a collision that could prove, if it becomes truly widespread, devastating to America's global position". Think about it, an America in a conflict with the world of Islam as a whole will be an America with more enemies and fewer friends. We don't want to be a country with fewer friends, more isolated and less secure.

Later this year the United States population will expand from 300 million to at least 400 million by mid-century.

Thomas Friedman, a reporter of high intelligence and excellent style believes that if in the United States we had a parliamentary democracy, similar to Britain's, the entire Bush team would be out of office by now, and deservedly so. In the New York Times he wrote, "In Iraq, the president was supposed to lead, manage and hold subordinates accountable, and he did not. Condoleeza Rice was supposed to co-ordinate, and she did not. Donald Rumsfeld was supposed to listen, and he did not." But ours is not a parliamentary democracy, so, like it or not, we have the same team in the Oval office for three more years.