In 2003, the State Department issued a report which said “terrorist attacks and related deaths had dropped to the lowest levels in three decades, and top Bush administration officials immediately cited it as proof of their success in the global war on terrorism.” Five months ago, “embarrassed State Department officials acknowledged widespread mistakes in the government’s influential annual report.”

Civil rights complaints ? including charges of abusive police tactics, racial violence, slavery or involuntary servitude, and blocked access to clinics ? have remained relatively constant over the last decade.

As many as 15,000 soldiers who have been injured in Iraq have been left off the official casualty count because their injuries were not sustained as a result of enemy fire. CBS News reports while most of these injuries are not life threatening, “only 20 percent return to their units in Iraq.

The administration’s own Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, warned this week that “The persistence of bloated U.S. trade deficits over time can pose a risk to the U.S. economy.” So far, Greenspan said, foreigners have been willing to lend the U.S. money to finance the current account imbalances, but “at some point foreigners might suddenly lose interest in holding dollar-denominated investments.

This weekend, Iraq’s Independent Electoral Commission announced the nation would hold elections on January 30. There are serious obstacles still to be overcome to meet that objective. Flawed or delayed elections would be a significant blow to Iraq’s stability and threaten civil war.

Well, any hope that Bush might mellow a little as a lame duck went away this week with his appointment of John Ashcroft’s replacement. Bush proved Wednesday his personal contempt for the Constitution by replacing one hater of the U.S. Constitution with another – nominating right-wing zealot Alberto Gonzales to replace his head Nazi – John Ashcroft – as attorney general.

I’d like to drop politics and the election as a topic, and I sincerely hope you’ll see less of it here, but the things going on now have the potential for an on-going impact on our day to day lives. So, I’ll continue to monitor Bush Act II. There is much to be concerned about. Bush’s only plan for unity is to “reach out to those who share our views.”

If America has entered one of its periodic eras of religious revival and if that revival is having the profound impact on politics that is now presumed, to participate in a discussion of “faith” one must qualify oneself.