Having written recently that the economy favors the Republicans in the mid-term elections, I suddenly find myself having to defend that point of view. After all, the Republicans got trounced. However, those who read my writings carefully know that I also said the economy would not be the deciding factor in the elections. That burden fell on the war in Iraq. Most voters seem satisfied with economic conditions at the moment, but they are fed up with the Bush administration's bungling of the war. Even though the Democrats don't have a coherent plan, voters obviously felt it was time for a change.
I suspected Donald Rumsfeld might be forced to step down if the Democrats won, but I never would have guessed it would have happened so quickly. The stock market was down for the day until Rumsfeld's resignation was announced. Suddenly the market rallied and closed up for the day. If that isn't adding insult to injury, I don't know what is.
President Bush nominated Robert Gates to replace Rumsfeld. Knowing how paranoid people can be in certain parts of the world, Bush should have stressed that this Gates is from the CIA, not Microsoft.
Like Condoleezza Rice, Gates has a lot of expertise in matters relating to the former Soviet Union. That's all well and good, but isn't it time we stacked our government with some Middle East experts?
