Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: President bush should find himself a fresh set of horses at White House

Sunday, Oct. 23, 2005 | 9:40 a.m.

A change is due.

There is a classic American sentiment that suggests it would be foolish to change horses in the middle of a stream.

It is classic and usually right on. In fact, President Bush's re-election victory was due almost totally to the American voters' demand that we change nothing while we are in the middle of a war in Iraq and a war on terror.

It can also be an affliction if, instead of changing the animal that brought you to near disaster in the middle of a raging river, you stick with it until both horse and rider go down for the count. Just when it is that we should look for new transportation, of course, is a subject of great interest and often requires a historical view to determine the proper course of action.

That seems to be where those inside the Washington Beltway -- and not paid cable television pundits -- see the White House and President George W. Bush.

There are a few examples the insiders point to as proof that the stream is rising and the horses are tiring.

Example No. 1: For at least the last four years health experts in our government have been warning the Bush administration that a flu pandemic -- that would be the avian flu we keep hearing about -- was likely to reach out and touch us. History has shown that a pandemic usually shows its deadly head every hundred years or so, the last one being the 1918 flu that killed millions around the world.

Instead of listening to the experts and providing the money and research necessary to provide much more than an ounce of prevention, the warnings fell on deaf ears.

Example No. 2: Let's call it Katrina. After 9/11 our federal government was going to do all that it could to secure the homeland and protect Americans from all manner of devastation.

We know what happened to the Gulf Coast states and we know it happened because incompetence was leading the agency whose job it was to protect us. Sure, a jackass was relieved of command, but there was no midstream change of the big horses.

Example No. 3: Iraq was won in a matter of days and who knows if it will be lost. What we do know is that we cannot walk away, which makes the poor performance by the horses in charge ample reason for a major correction long ago. Of course, nothing of the sort has occurred.

When President Ronald Reagan was in so much trouble after Iran Contra, he swept his closet full of bunglers and gave his administration a fresh new look and the American people a reason to remain optimistic.

Our current president appears bent on that loyalty thing to a fault. Instead of changing out the bumblers, poor planners, ineffective leaders and those either under indictment or close enough to one that they shouldn't be in or around the White House, he has chosen to keep riding his loyal but lackluster steeds right into the middle of the white waters.

I can find very few people -- other than the "Bush at any cost supporters" who see only their buttered bread -- who believe that life in these United States is safe, good or as hopeful as it should be.

Ask most Americans and I believe they would say it is time for a change. At the very least, they could name a few horses who should be put out to pasture right quick.

Ask many of the folks who live inside the Washington Beltway and they will tell you that instead of changing horses in midstream, we would be better off changing streams.

The next presidential election is three years away and the talk of change is in the air. And both sides are saying the same thing!