Letter: Bush doesn’t realize he is in over his head

Frank R. Kegan

Monday, Jan. 22, 2007 | 7:13 a.m.

The major columnists describe the same picture of the Bush administration, from New Orleans to Iraq. The mix of stubborn incompetence, willful ignorance and arrogant attack upon any and all alternatives describes the administration's approach to each and every situation.

In New Orleans, the president's plan was to rebuild the French Quarter for those with money to live on high ground. Forget that it is the creative poor who make the culture for the wealthy and tourists to enjoy.

In Iraq, it is the ethnic/religious split of Sunni vs Shia with the Kurds taken as a special group to make an 80 percent solution without a thought that it is the recipe for civil war spilling over into regional chaos.

The original plan was to topple Saddam so the new government would hire Halliburton for the many oil field needs, while about 30,000 U.S. troops in permanent bases would make Iraq like Germany, Japan or Korea.

When the Iraqi situation was too damaged to follow those other occupation models, Bush has nothing he can do but keep sending troops and hope eventually they will become like those other prior war conquests.

Bush can trick his way to win a few elections, but he can't run a government or even figure out he is in over his head. Now the world holds its breath wondering if the U.S. democracy can correct itself or if the bad boy with his hand on the ultimate doomsday buttons will run amok with us all.

Frank R. Kegan, Las Vegas