"I find myself wondering if it is even possible to effectively lead this country."

I tend to agree at least to the extent that:

1. Expectations are too high. People have come to believe that the government is capable of making life painless and struggle-free. For every single difficulty that an American comes up against -- even natural occurances -- there is an immediate and very vocal, "SOMEBODY OUGHTA DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS!"...and what they mean is that the government oughta do something about it (with just the slightest implication that it was, after all, the government's fault that it happened in the first place).

There is an ever encroaching public numbness to the notion that everything the government "gives" us: 1) costs us something, and 2) diminishes our freedom.

There is a rampant, horrible economic misunderstanding in the USA today -- that the government is a net producer of goods and services. It is not. It is a net consumer that needs constant production or it will fail -- even if its intentions seem honorable.

2. The balance of power MIGHT still be intact, but the perception of the balance of power is severely distorted. The President is NOT a king. He is the "executive". He is supposed to execute the laws of the legislative branch. The real power should be in the legislative branch which, by its very nature of being a power divided over 435 representatives, naturally protects (from despotism) the people from whom that power derives.

If Bush had adhered to the constitutional dictates of where the power lies, he would probably either have avoided the Iraqi debacle altogether, or we would have won the war decisively as a congressionally declared (and therefore not useful as a political football on the homefront) war. Instead, now a defeat of Bush on the Iraqi front affords great power to an opposition party. "Screwed up" is what that is.