Absolutely, kat. I appreciated this part:

As a first step toward Iraqi prosperity, the president's ambitious postwar plan earmarks $100 million to ensure that Iraq's 25,000 schools have all the supplies and support necessary to "function at a standard level of quality" -- including books and supplies for 4.1 million Iraqi schoolchildren.

I'm sure those schools in Oregon that are being forced to shut down a month early due to inadequate funding, or the low-income students in California who are suing the state in a desperate effort to obtain adequate textbooks and qualified teachers of their own, would love to see the same kind of "tangible evidence" of President Bush's support.

Here in Hawaii, and I'm sure it's the same in any other state, President Bush's "No Child Left Behind" education program is seen as a cruel joke by school administrators and teachers. The law mandates a crushing amount of paperwork by school personnel, fixates on standardized tests as the only measure of educational "quality," and provides no funding to allow schools to comply with its unrealistic and onerous requirements. But it sure made a good sound bite, didn't it?

See, as long as you believe that everything the President and his associates say is the truth, you can pretend that everything is fine, and you don't have to think about anything at all. Unless it happens to be your kid whose school is closing, or your retirement savings that were wiped out by illegal corporate shenanigans, or your nephew who is getting blown up in Iraq, or your friends who don't care that their nice house in Baghdad is now a pile of rocks, because they're dead.

Aloha,
Mark