Have you completely missed the point? The utter failure of the Bush administration has left a HUGE mess that will take many more years to fix than it took to achieve-and the Bushites seems hell-bent on accomplishing as much destruction as possible before they leave office(repealing environmental protection, selling public land to mining interests, pardons for economic and Constitutional criminals, etc.,etc.). The only fixation many of us have is on accountability. We want to see prosecution of the the ones who brought this country to the brink of destruction-instead of retiring with huge pensions and other ill-gotten gains while the new Administration picks up the pieces-and the American people foot the bill.

I don't know where you get your info but the Republicans controlled the House from 1994-2006. The Senate had a slim democratic majority of 1 from 2001-02, I think. The rest of the time it was Republican controlled until 2006 and after that the threat of Republican fillibusters stopped any real legislation in the Senate. Does anyone remember how the threat of Democratic filibusters were denounced by O' Reilly in 2001? Funny how Fox news fails to mention Republican obstructionism since 2006.

The Neocons and the Radical Right wing Zionist Christians are hard at work revising history.

Go back and read James Risen's article of November 6, 2002, "Iraq said to Have Tried to Reach a Last-Minute Deal to Avert War.

Two quotes, hopefully not out of context: "..that they wanted Washington to know that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction, and they offered to allow American troops and experts to conduct a search."

"...the officials told him they did not want to pursue this channel, and they indicated they had already engaged in separate contacts with Bag dad. Mr. Perle said, "The message wad, 'Tell them that we will see them in Bag dad.'?

Who are the Thees? Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Addington, Perle, Cheney, Albert Gonzales, Jim Haynes, Timothy Flanigan, John Yoo, C. Rice and Chairman of the War Department, Richard Meyers.

"I don't know how many saw "what would you do" on ABC the other night, but basically they had a couple actors in Paris acting like the stereotypical "ugly americans". The guy was wearing a Bush T-shirt. One of the bystanders (german accent), later interviewed after the act was revealed, said that wearing the Bush T-shirt was like her wearing a "I like Hitler" T-shirt. The fact that the vast majority of people outside the US think the same thing says something."

I saw that and told my wife that the German woman was far more rude (as well as ignorant) than the American actors.

Keep in mind that Europeans also hated Americans when Clinton was president. Here's an aticle from April 2000.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/040900-106.htm

According to the article, "The Clinton administration’s cheerleading—for example, its repeated description of the United States as being the 'indispensable' nation—strikes a threatening chord [in Europe]." Secretary of State Madeleine Albright used this very language in 1998 vis-à-vis Iraq: "[I]f we have to use force, it is because we are America, we are the indispensable nation, we stand tall—we see further into the future." The late Charles Maechling Jr., who served as a State Department official in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, took exception to Albright’s words: "Madeleine Albright is the first secretary of state in American history whose diplomatic specialty, if one can call it that, is lecturing other governments, using threatening language and tastelessly bragging of the power and virtue of her country."

(Ironically, while delivering a speech concerning the need to regain worldwide respect for America, former Democratic presidential candidate and now VP-elect Joe Biden on November 27, 2007, told an Iowa audience that the U.S. is an 'indispensable nation.')

"Two quotes, hopefully not out of context: "..that they wanted Washington to know that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction, and they offered to allow American troops and experts to conduct a search."

If that's the case, why didn't Saddam cooperate with inspectors when they were on the ground in Iraq?

After reviewing Hans Blix’s book, Disarming Iraq, Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek International described the lack of cooperation Saddam provided prior to the invasion:

"More revealing are Blix’s difficulties with the Iraqis. Time and again he and his colleague Mohamed ElBaradei tried to explain to the Iraqis that they needed to cooperate for the inspections to confirm what they claimed—that they had no weapons of mass destruction. After repeated requests to talk to Saddam Hussein, which were turned down, Blix and ElBaradei met with the Iraqi vice president (a powerless Hussein stooge). At that meeting, ElBaradei sternly explained that it was "incomprehensible" that Iraq had not taken the steps the United Nations had demanded. There was no response….It was be-havior like this that led Blix and many others to assume that the Iraqis were not coming clean because they had something to hide."

You ignore the time frame and a very important point.

(1) The time frame of Nov. 6, 2002 and the Bush government chose a person without authority or jurisdiction (Perle) to negotiate through a 'back-channel' of communication with the Iraqi government the chance to prevent a war of choice.

(2) Not UN Inspectors, the American Army in Iraq to learn the truth.

Not to forget how the Calvinist New-Born-led religious alliance (Robertson, Weyrich, Falwell, Hagee and many other charismatic crooks and opportunists...) has infiltrated American national life, junking separation between church and state. They controlled the agenda. Montesquieu and the Founding Fathers of the republic must be howling in their graves.

How many thousands of civil servants have been sacked to make room for religious fanatics appointed to civil service jobs. For how long will the religious appointees imprint their wacko absurd agenda and sabotage reason and modern sense?

Even Time magazine used to schmooze about "Rapture" and the end of time.

Then the New-Born fanatics wanted to convert Irak to Christianity. They sent missionaries to Irak touted by Time magazine.

The result? Islamic fundamentalists are killing and are chasing out the Christians of Irak, who have lived there since early Christian times.

That'is what one gets when one allows the taking over of the state by religious intolerant fanatics.

Obama should ponder how to prevent the deleterious religious tide in the future.