1.) Bush cut funding for nearly 10,000 border patrol agents three months ago.

2.) He poses at the border in a dune buggy the day someone is shot and killed by federal agents.

He's a decider, all right. Making all the wrong decisions, including shoot to kill a person who was heading back to Mexico.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported on Wednesday, February 9, 2005 : The law signed by President Bush less than two months ago to add thousands of border patrol agents along the U.S.-Mexico border has crashed into the reality of Bush's austere federal budget proposal, officials said Tuesday.

Officially approved by Bush on Dec. 17 after extensive bickering in Congress, the National Intelligence Reform Act included the requirement to add 10,000 border patrol agents in the five years beginning with 2006. Roughly 80 percent of the agents were to patrol the southern U.S. border from Texas to California, along which thousands of people cross into the United States illegally every year.

But Bush's proposed 2006 budget, revealed Monday, funds only 210 new border agents.

Maybe Bush was planning on hiring 10,000 mexican workers to patrol the border, he could probably get that for the cost of the 210 agents salaries he funded.

I'm sure the passengers on The Titanic gave a disapproving job rating to the captain of the ship. Saying that these passengers were "unsettled" would have been the understatement of the century. When will this president realize that the majority of Americans believe that we are on a sinking ship?

Here are some "unsettleds" for the "Decider-in-Chief" and faux economist Rove:

Gas prices have increased 68 percent.

Health care premiums have increased by over 70 percent.

College tuition has skyrocketed by as much as 57 percent.

Housing affordability has reached a 14-year low.

While working families work harder, their wages continue to decline.

Worst job creation record since Hoover Administration. Overall nonfarm payroll employment has increased by 2.6 million during the Bush presidency compared with 22.7 million during the Clinton presidency. (Joint Economic Committee Democrats, 5/5/06)

Unemployment has increased and long-term joblessness has nearly doubled.

Bush’s deficit-financed tax cuts have widened the income gap between millionaires and middle-class workers.

Record government and personal debt levels threaten economic future.

C'mon, George Bush is, after all, the self-proclaimed DECIDER . If he wants to decide that the 71% of us that disapprove of the job he's doing are "unsettled" then that's that. At least he didn't decide that we were traitorous lunatics. And how nice that he and Karl Rove have decided to blame our being unsettled on the war in Iraq -- that way they can ignore all of the other aspects of the polls, the ones that indicate that the majority of us are also unsettled about his dishonesty and how he's handling issues like taxes, ethics, the economy, immigration, the deficit and gas prices.

...a man who talked like this is the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary of his fantasies would be let go.

This is a man who's president of the United States, but his behavior might easily result in court-ordered psychiatric care if he was in almost any other job. It's not a question of liking or disliking him, of agreeing or disagreeing with his politics. He's delusional. By any reasonable definition, he's a danger to himself and others.

Impeachment? Hell, that's not the half of it. This guy needs to be committed.

As usual, the media can't seem to come up with a coherent follow up question. Here is how to beat the "talking points" president at his own game -- with a real question:

"Okay, Mr. President, you claim that the economy is good but your approval rating is down because the public is "unsettled" by the war. How then do you explain that during the original Iraq war, during your father's administration, and with a bad economy, that his approval ratings were in the 70's? In addition, during the war in Afghanistan, when the economy was suffering due to the aftershock of 9/11, your approval ratings were in the 80's. If a war truly unsettles the public, how do you justify your analysis given the approval polls during those war times?"

Instead we get poor follow up questions that do not force him to provide any real thoughtful answers but instead gives him another chance to repeat the same jibberish.

It looks like Bush is using the Walmart model for the nation's security. Instead of hiring fulltime workers and giving them benefits, Walmart hires part time workers, gives them crazy alternating schedules (to prevent them from taking a second job) and does not give them benefits. Bush seems to hold the National Guard to the same type of business model. Instead of sending a large number of standing, full-time military members to Iraq, he understaffs and sends part-timers out there. Instead of hiring specially trained, fulltime border patrol agents, he grabs part-timers and throws them into the breach for unspecified periods of time.

This seems to be the new model everywhere. I have worked in hospitals which delberately understaff and hire "traveling" nurses... part-timers who don't get fulltime benefits and who work for a 6 month schedule; then their contracts are terminated. Want to know how well that is doing? Take a look at the skyrocketing number of accidental hospital deaths and at how many hospitals are closing. One of the first hospitals I knew of that switched over to this model was just torn down to make way for high priced condos.

Boy, we've got some real business geniuses out there. And now we've got a Decider in Chief who is using this disasterous model of skelton staffing with a deliberately irregular workforce for our national security. People used to know that the bottom line isn't always money. Bush knows with regard to his inner circle - the bottom line is loyalty. If you give workers a decent salary, adequately compensate for some of the more detrimental workplace environments and benefits that help make their lives a little better, they'll stay, focus and do a good job. If you don't, they'll say "Fuck you" and cheat you whenever they can.

Oh, and I didn't forget about the contractors. In this modern business world you don't hire your own maintenance staff. You contract out to others. They will also rob you blind, but hey, it keeps the economy chugging along.