Pres. George W. Bush's political handlers have apparently struck upon an agenda for his next term. It is difficult not to snicker.

It is patently ridiculous for Bush to run on a platform on his plans for the next four years. A successful incumbent is surely to be tested on his ideas going forward. But it requires some chutzpah for Bush, perhaps the most inept president in U.S. history, to project anything other than his ability to clean up his own mess.

A sitting president is to be judged by his performance in his first term. As that famous Republican hero Ronald Reagan once quipped: are you better off than you were four years ago? Bush had his opportunity; so what has he actually delivered and why did he not deliver in his first term what he is now promising in his second.
Take a look at the record. The Iraq war is an unmitigated disaster by any measure. It is beyond unconscionable that a man incapable of fathoming the horrors of war should have the power to use lies and fabrications to wage war recklessly. It is downright revolting that Bush, who used his family connections to dodge the Vietnam War, would dare to question the patriotism and smear the character of an opponent who fought so heroically in that same war.

But it is not just the Iraq War and the 1,000 American lives Bush and his political handlers have sacrificed for his political props. There is also his ineptness in managing the real war on terror. Minorities, Indian Americans included, have been the misdirected targets of Bush's politically contrived war on terror. U.S. citizens have experienced the collateral damage of these unending wars in the form of the wholesale abandonment of civil rights and liberties, ostensibly as a price for safety.

The country is no safer, only more scared. As case after case, prosecution after prosecution of so-called terror suspects who were paraded before the country with politically expedient regularity, falls apart, it is becoming crystal clear that the overwhelming majority of terror suspects held in secret were either bit players or even innocent.

Meanwhile the real suspects, like Osama bin Laden, are still at large, and his organization Al Qaeda, is even more lethal, because Bush's reelection campaign wanted the country distracted with a poorly planned and executed occupation of Iraq.

Then there is the economy. If Bush had not so obsessed himself and the country with his bogus wars, that is what this election would be focused on. Bush's has to be the most abysmal economic performance in presidential history at least since World War II. American soldiers and the country's economy have both been sacrificed at the altar of Bush's political ambitions for a second term, seemingly for no higher purpose than besting his father.

A president with such an abysmal record and pathetic aspirations should be staring at the most crushing electoral loss in American presidential history. That Bush stands a better than even chance of prevailing is testament to the political astuteness of his handlers, the lethal dirty tricks employed by his campaign, and an insipid mainstream press.

Unfortunately, Kerry has not proven terribly inspiring as a political candidate either. Any smart political tactician would long have buried Bush. If Kerry can break through his stultifying campaign and the mainstream media begin focusing on Bush's real record, instead of being consumed by his campaign spins and the mindless chatter of political hacks, this election ought not to be close, not by a long shot. America and the world will be the better if Bush doesn't just lose, but rather he suffers the most ignominious defeat in presidential history.

We hope the estimated 250,000 Indian Americans who show up at the polls will contribute to Bush's burial party.

We so hope. If we aren't exactly betting on it, it is only because we too are awed by the viciousness and deviousness of Bush's attack dogs.