Reply #7: Well said. There is indeed a history behind where we are today,

[Rydz777]

and you are absolutely right that Bush has invented nothing new except the stunning incompetence.

Often forgotten in the elevation of Lincoln is how he ran roughshod over civil liberties - suspending Habeas Corpus and suppressing and imprisoning those who got in his way. Like the War on Terror, it was justified as being in the national interest. Maybe it was, but it is easier to read about it than to have been subjected to it. History is so often much more fun to read than to live.