Steven C. Day writes about his fever-induced dream about President Bush's first 100 days. How do you think Bush has performed?

Oh, lordy, this isn't so far from the truth, particularly Ashcroft and the Supreme Court.

Bush is doing exactly what Republicans expected him to do -- and there's nothing wrong with that. After 8 years of CLinton, it's about time. Liberals might be miserable, but the rest of us are dancing once again.

Yeah, dancing on the graves of the poor (no living wage, minimal tax breaks - while corporations are on welfare), children (kids are prematurely stressed-out from endless standardized testing -- not to mention they are dying of arsenic poisoning), and the environment (soaking in an orgy of oil).

It's not Republicans and Democrats (I didn't vote for either). It's the compassionate and the selfish. You decide.

If you work 7 day work weeks i.e. taking work home or working in your home answering business phone messages and emails, or on your cell phone doing business calls while you make dinner for your familly or when you're driving to and from work and when you take your vacation your pager rings or you check your business email messages at the resort you're staying at(and if you don't you will if you intend to survive) and you wonder where all the time went. You can thank all the corperate megers and the bottom line additudes and the general greed of profit before human decency that has come down the pipe in the last 20 years. When you wonder what will happen to that tax cut duby will give you(i.e. it's going to pay for your increase in engery cost). When the top one percent of Americans owns 50% of the stock market and they will have first crack at the human genome project (i.e. being able to afford the cost of having their progeny have desinger genes to live longer, be stronger, have higher IQs and genearlly be able to dominate those who do not have access to this technology i.e. those who are middle class and don't have the money power to have this technology) then I welcome to see you dance at the total lost of humanity. The problem with Republicans is their social darwinest. The problem with social darwinest is like in nature there is no morality: parasites exist, the weakest die, and no one cares as long as it isn't them. So what do you expect I expect the universe to be populated by this horrible consuming species call man with this horrible doctrine of capitalism and republican maddness. So go ahead dance, enjoy it, be like Nero who played the violin while Rome burns. You deserve all of this. Then go to your God and ask for forgiveness cause you'll go to paradise for all the good you supposely did in this life. Gosh, why is it when I think of the republican party I think of the ultimate hypocracy.

Clinton's vagaries in the oral office posed no threat to the earth, but he was impeached. Shrub is the most serious threat to the planet since carbon dioxide.

While you are correct, bush is doing exactly what we thought he would do, the problem for you lower class republicans (meaning less wealthy) will come later. You still do not have sufficient assets to purchase your way into their club and the policies being enacted now (and the judiciary being assembled) will erode your quality of life as much as it will erode that of the desperatly poor in this country, the real enemies of the republicans. In the end, the only real beneficiaries of these policies will be people far more wealthy than you can ever hope to be and the purported benefits will never accrue to you.

A very astute observation by pmiller. What is most intriguing about this, however, is the fact that these "lower-class Republicans" will still be voting Republican even though it is against their interest. How is that possible? I would refer you to a brilliant analysis of the same effect as it occurred in Margaret Thatcher's England in the 1980s - Stuart Hall's essay "The Toad in the Garden."

What it comes down to is Bush's astute manipulation of the divisions in our country. He constantly frames debates in order that class is not the issue but something else (family, children, freedom). It becomes a battle of ideologies rather than economic self-interest.

A uniter rather than a divider? It all depends on what we are rallying around.

At least you can wake from the dream. The next 4 years are going to be a nightmare. Bush doesn't have a mandate, but Gore conceded. Problem for Bush is at least 50 percent of the people will be cynical about anything he does. Problem for us -- the 50 percent -- is that he doesn't give a damn about us.