August 30, 2004 - "Had we to do it over again, we would look at the consequences of catastrophic success, being so successful so fast that an enemy that should have surrendered or been done in escaped and lived to fight another day," President Bush told Time Magazine admitting that his administration had underestimated the chaos that had followed Tommy Franks’ splendid military campaign. This is the same President who was urging America to judge him and his administration by results. Let us look at some of those results. .

The Census Bureau reports that in each year of the Bush Administration the number of Americans living in poverty has risen. In each year of the Bush Administration the median family income of Americans has fallen. In each year of the Bush Administration the number of Americans who are without medical insurance has increased. Those are the results as recorded by the non-partisan statisticians of the Census Bureau, not the partisan sniping of an opposition party or candidate.

From Basra north to the slums of Baghdad three weeks of combat has not brought us closer to defeating a rag-tag Shi`ite militia despite out withdrawal from the siege of Najaf. From the Syrian border to east to the outskirts of Baghdad American soldiers still die in ones and twos. The fundamentalists control Fallujah and Ramadi and most of Anbar Province. The Marines are bottled up in forts at the edge of the desert. The desert and the cities belong to the insurgents. It is as though the scenes of Beau Geste and The Four Feathers are being reenacted. In Iraq and in Afghanistan more than 1,000 Americans have been sacrificed. Iraqi oil export, the income from which we were told would pay for the Iraqi adventure have been halved by sabotage and then halved again. January elections in Fallujah and Najaf, in Kufa and Ramadi are said to be impossible and day by day the insurgents grow in number. Those are objective results as well.

Al Qaeda is still the lethal instrument of Osama Bin Laden, the bogeyman against which the Department of Homeland Security has warned us at every opportunity. Bin Laden is still at large/ Mullah Omar has not been found. Terrorists strike around the world seemingly at will. The North Koreans know and the Iranians know that even if we wished to preemptively let slip the dogs of war against them there are no war dogs left to send. Those too are the results upon which President Bush and his stewardship must be gauged.

That is the series of catastrophic successes that the Bush has achieved since his election. America can’t afford many more like these.