resident Bush has asked us to give him our confidence. He assumes he does not already have it. Ah, but he is so wrong. He has our confidence. Well, OK, not the confidence he was looking for, but confidence just the same.

We the people of the United States of America voted Bush into office, heaven help us. We have confidence that he will continue to wreak havoc with our economic system, helping the poor to become even poorer, continuing to make cuts to programs that would aid the indigent right here at home, all while pouring funds into a war and foreign aid that may or may not help anyone. So we have confidence that his economic priorities are, at best, skewed.

We have confidence that, on one hand, Bush states that we need more engineers and scientists – people who think outside of the box and solve all kinds of problems. On the other hand he is instituting a system of education at the K-12 level that trains our leaders of tomorrow to be drones. They will, however, have an excellent mastery of how to take tests of basic skills. Higher-level thinking, mind you, is not a part of this educational doctrine. How are we going to get engineers out of a system like that? Furthermore, back to the topic of economics, how are we supposed to do this without additional funding? Yes, my children, we have confidence that Bush doesn't have a clue about education.

We the people of the United States of America voted Bush into office, heaven help us. After spending five years of his presidency in this most honorable office, our president has finally come to the conclusion that perhaps we need to become less oil dependent. This revelation came well after gas prices started to get high.

There was no legislation, of course, no leadership in the direction of reducing our oil dependence. In fact, we have way too many gas guzzlers on the road and far too often there are one, maybe two, passengers. The technology is there to change this situation. But President Bush has done nothing of any consequence to inspire our innovative population to get to work on this problem in a serious way.

There could be tax incentives, for example, for people who purchase gas-efficient cars. Not just hybrids, but any car that gets over, say, 35 MPG. How about incentives for companies that develop and market this technology? So, yes we have confidence that we can count on President Bush for no leadership when it comes to domestic needs such as oil dependency.

We the people of the United States of America voted Bush into office, heaven help us. President Bush does not truly believe in the provisions of the American Constitution. No, he believes that rules go out the window with foreign prisoners and with our own population's right to privacy. We have confidence that our current president has no respect for our own laws.

We the people of the United States of America voted Bush into office, heaven help us. President Bush claims to be a "Right to Life" president. Whose life is he talking about? He isn't talking about the lives of the people we are killing overseas. He isn't talking about the lives of our own soldiers, contractors and journalists overseas. He isn't talking about the lives of people in a certain community right here in the U.S. who were killed or lost their livelihoods as they previously knew them due to severely inclement weather.

Bush is a proponent of keeping unborn children alive, despite the apparent overpopulation of our planet, and keeping people alive who are dying anyway and don't want to stay alive. In the meantime, the world population explodes, putting strains on the world's resources and the earth's ability to keep itself in environmental balance. You're either pro-life, or you're not. We can now say we have confidence that President Bush doesn't really mean what he says.

We the people of the United States of America voted Bush into office, heaven help us. President Bush insists he is a Christian. I was under the impression that Christian belief meant that one should treat others in the manner they would want to be treated.

I'm not aware, though, of a single belief expressed by Jesus regarding our right to go out and kill people in other countries. This insistence that, virus-like, we spread democracy and a market-based economy around the world is disrespectful of the people who have not chosen that path. Is this truly how we would wish to be treated? President Bush has instilled confidence in us that we can count on him to pay his Christian beliefs only lip service.

President Bush feels we the people don't have as much confidence in him as we ought to have and so he has asked us for it. What he doesn't realize is, you don't ask for confidence, you earn it. He has instilled confidence that he has skewed economic priorities, doesn't have a clue about education, will not lead people to work together to solve our country's ills, has no respect for the people who reside on this planet, pays lip service to his professed religious beliefs and generally doesn't mean what he says.

This is his legacy. If he wants a different kind of confidence from us, then he had better get busy earning it.