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Sincerely. Before you took office, I was consumed by my own short-sighted personal interests and left political activism to others. After all, in the grand scheme of things, my vote and voice meant very little, and besides, I had to "put food on the family". But in the 2000 election the vote was too close to call. Less than 400 votes separated Gore and Bush in Florida, with several voting irregularities. Election night came and went, and in the morning, still we had no answer.

Days turned to weeks and the two candidates turned to the courts. David Boies argued for Gore and won a string of successes in Florida, causing the Bush camp attorney, Ted Olson, to refer to Mr. Boies as a "T-Rex of an attorney."

Politics definitely had my attention, and I started feeling guilty for not voting. Ultimately Bush the lesser would win by a single vote. His attorney, Mr. Olson successfully argued before the SCOTUS to stop the Florida recount and in a 5-4 decision installed by selection, instead of election, the President who would ignore the threats of terrorists allowing them to use airplanes to attack America. The one that slammed into the Pentagon was carrying Mr. Olson's wife.

Thank you President Bush, for showing me the power of one vote.

After seven minutes of stunned silence, you grabbed your bullhorn in the nick of time telling America your number one job is to keep us safe. Somehow, wondering around in the wreckage of your ignorance and arrogance did not seem like leadership, but hey, I guess all that Presidentin' is hard work. You roun up a posse and search for a tall tree and a short rope but can't seem to find the guy whodunnit. No sense in lettin' a good posse go to waste, so you shake and bake a bunch of undercooked intel and invade Iraq. You will never be found guilty of diplomacy, one only need to look at how you treat our diplomats.

Thank you President Bush, for showing me how important it is who I vote for.

Now your occupation of Iraq is going badly. Whodathunkit? Certainly not your rubber-stamp Congress (recently replaced btw). You continuously poked purple fingers into the eyes of your critics as evidence Iraqis want to throw off tyranny and replace it with freedom and democracy. We point to America's vote of November 7th as evidence of the same. Terms like "congressional oversight" and "separation of powers" and "judicial oversight" had no real world meaning to me, until they were non-existent. And the Constitution, which I thought was a bloodless document, is no such thing. When it is damaged, America herself is wounded.

Thank you President Bush for the civics lesson.

The Federal Government limits my employment to 70 hours in eight days, and I frequently bump this ceiling. Nevertheless, prior to the recent mid-terms found me pestering my neighbors to vote. I was dispatched 700 miles from my polling place on election day and threatened to quit. If both of my knees were shattered, I would have drug my unemployed ass across broken glass to cast my vote.

Thank you President Bush for giving me a passion for my country.

Fortunately, by taking advantage of early voting, I did not have to do that. On November 7th as I was driving to New Mexico, I called my neighbors and urged them to the polls. My goal was to vote and add three more. The final result was nine. I plan on making them lieutenants with orders to recruit three more new voters apiece.

Thank you President Bush for doing the impossible; you damn near organized the Democratic party.

Truly I don't think my education and motivation needed to be so costly for America. Curiously, you took your one vote mandate (and questionable re-election), lassoed the stalled Gingrich revolution pendulum, pointed your wagon toward the neocon vanishing point and commenced to mash that gas and tote that ass and brought down your own house. You spent all of our money, our kids money and even their kid's kids money. We got no street cred worldwide, our military is sucking wind, our spies are gun shy from shooterface guy and the whole world is heating up. And that's just the short list.

Thank you President Bush for being the poster child for why politics matter.

I've turned the corner towards '08 and set my sights on the blatant homophobe and science denier, Senator James "Baghdad Bob" Inhofe. With any luck, my nine lieutenants, or heros (inside joke) will throw in and we can get him bounced. The nightmarish beginning of this century and all the horrors that have occurred since has been due to one man and one vote.

Bring a friend.

What has Bush taught you?

On the rare occasion when he's not on the road, or commenting at FDL, Oilfieldguy blogs at kittenstomper.