During the run-up to the 2004 election, I consistently made the case that the Prez ought to be judged not on ideology, but rather competence. Was his administration able to run the government or prosecute a war? I mean, we can bitch and moan about lot of little things, but big things are key.

The answer then was no. About half of America shared that assessment. Then the war devolved into slow-motion apocalypse and Katrina laid waste to Louisiana and Mississippi. Misstep after misstep has followed, to the point where the revelation that the FBI has criminally (the word specifically used by the FBI's own inspector general) misused National Security Letters and essentially spied on tens of thousands of innocent citizens seems more like "Yeah, and what's new?" news rather than the frightening scandal it ought to be.

Like many folks, my friends and I have been bantering about whether the Prez is the worst Prez ever. I'm in the wait-and-see camp, though in terms of incompetence I'd say Bush is rivalled only by James Buchanan, who sat around while the Civil War kicked off. Buchanan still leads; it's hard to beat destroying the nation as a measure of incompetence.

Still, when it comes to frittering away the civil rights of his citizens, our current Prez is tops on the list. Lincoln suspended habeus corpus, FDR tossed citizens into internment camps and Wilson had the Postmaster General dipping into personal mail with alarming alacrity. Bush has done all of these things and more. It's unlikely that agents of some shadowy governmental agency will come through the door and "disappear" me for a few years (if not forever), but it could happen. It is happening in our nation right now. By and large, citizens eventually get access to a lawyer and are able to contact their families. But that can take a long time. And if you're not a citizen? Good fucking luck, my friend.

America is too large and too obstreperous to turn into a full-blown police state. Our nation was founded with a more-than-healthy mistrust of government, and that character has stuck with us to this day. Even with the help of the biggest and fastest computers the government can't keep track of everything that is written, e-mailed or spoken. If you and a couple buddies are planning to drive over to the White House and dump a load of treated hog waste in the front yard, chances are no one will be the wiser until the Ellipse is coated pink. If you can get through the fence, of course.

But we could end up with something of an arbitrary police state, where bad things happen for no particularly good reason. And if you get caught up in that machinery, you'd be grist in the mill and no one would know you were there in the first place.

So I guess that sort of thing might, in fact, qualify as destroying America. But we'll have to wait a few years to see if such an eventuality comes to pass.

It's much easier to pass judgment on all the other things the Prez has done. He's rapidly bankrupting the nation, a fact that would be more obvious if the cost of the war was part of the budget and if the extra Social Security money--which is about to go away--wasn't counted as income. He's turned public schools into test preparation centers. He's hamstrung FEMA and other necessary agencies. He's turned the United States into a pariah nation around the world. Oh, and a few other things. But this list is long enough.

What's more striking is the other list. The one with his accomplishments. There's the tax cuts--the engine of our current bankruptcy. And, well, the war. It's not a good record.

For the Prez to have failed as badly as owner of the Rangers as he has in the White House, he would have had to spend a couple billion on the construction of a new stadium that continually kept falling in, signed Josh Hamilton to a fifteen-year, $500 million guaranteed contract, hired some hack as manager and stuck with his choice as the team struggled to win 30 games a year--and had fans arrested if they complained about the team's lousy performance. It's hard to fuck up as badly as the Prez and his pals have done. You not only have to work your ass off, you have to be somewhat unlucky.

But as my grandpa used to say, "The harder you work, the luckier you get." These days, that quote is most commonly attributed to Gary Player (the golfer), but I think it's derived from something Thomas Jefferson said. If not, well, my grandpa was saying it before Player was famous, so it was floating out there somewhere. Anyway, the Prez and his pals have worked very hard. They're very good at doing. It's just that what they've done hasn't worked. On virtually any level. Unless, of course, you're really rich and own a lot of stocks. Then you've done very well by the Prez.

I wish it didn't matter, but it does. The Prez is in office for almost two more years. Empires have been destroyed in much shorter time frames. We'll just have to count on the American people to help avoid that.

Jon Worley is barely able to tie his shoes some days.