Like Nixon and Kissinger before him, it sounds like Bush is an inch away from asking Condoleezza Rice to get on the floor in the Oval Office to pray with him. This President will never snap out of his denial. To his concrete, evangelical way of thinking, admitting mistakes would be tantamount to admitting doubt in his moral compass. And to those who have redirected their moral compass in their lifetime, as Bush did when he stopped drinking, doubt can be lethal. He has no choice but to doubt his critics over his faith. The inflexibility of the convert goes back to Paul the Apostle. Bush fell off his horse on the way to a bar in Texas, and he will never, ever get back on it.

Combine blind arrogance, borderline paranoia, quasi-religious fervor and petty vanity and what do you get? George Bush, recklessly in charge of the most dangerous nation on Earth, that's what you get!

Frankly, Mr. Bush being in denial has been a major function of his presidency. Denial must not just be for rivers in Egypt anymore. Yes, Mr. Bush appears only in front of hand picked supplicants who worship the ground he walks on. No wonder that he is off in Never-Never land. If he actually saw the level of American dissatisfaction his governent has brought on itself, he might actually be able to do something about it. Instead he has the ship of state's rudder hard-a-starboard, all ahead full aiming towards that iceberg to starboard.

The line between incompetence and real leadership gets drawn here. If a leader cannot look at all sides of an issue and come up with the best decision based on facts (real ones, not manufactured ones), then all that matters is "face." I'm tired of the "I-never-made-a-mistake", type of "leadership." Someone who can not acknowledge public opinion or any ideas or opinions other than his own is frightening to me. Should he decide to bring on the apocalypse will all his cronies stick by him then? How bad does it have to get and how many indictments have to come down before our elected officials and the people in this country say "that's enough"?