The New York Times is offering its subscribers free access to Times Select for this week only. I clicked through and when immediately to Paul Krugman’s latest column, called “Limiting the Damage.” He says tomorrow’s elections are really all about Bush, and “whether voters will pry his fingers loose from at least some of the levers of power, thereby limiting the damage he can inflict in his two remaining years in office.” [Link - works only if you have access to Times Select] I think this is an important point, and why voting in this election is critical. Krugman summarizes very well why Bush’s power should be limited:

At this point, nobody should have any illusions about Mr. Bush’s character. To put it bluntly, he’s an insecure bully who believes that owning up to a mistake, any mistake, would undermine his manhood — and who therefore lives in a dream world in which all of his policies are succeeding and all of his officials are doing a heckuva job. Just last week he declared himself “pleased with the progress we’re making” in Iraq.

In other words, he’s the sort of man who should never have been put in a position of authority, let alone been given the kind of unquestioned power, free from normal checks and balances, that he was granted after 9/11. But he was, alas, given that power, as well as a prolonged free ride from much of the news media.

The results have been predictably disastrous. The nightmare in Iraq is only part of the story. In time, the degradation of the federal government by rampant cronyism – almost every part of the executive branch I know anything about, from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been FEMAfied – may come to be seen as an equally serious blow to America’s future.

And it should be a matter of intense national shame that Mr. Bush has quietly abandoned his fine promises to New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast.

With his party dominating the legislative and, now, the judicial branches of government, we have a scenario where “absolute power corrupts absolutely” and a leader whose limited competence, insensitivity, and ethical blindness creates a political perfect storm the catastrophic effects of which has, among other things, trashed the USA’s standing in the world community as well as our competitiveness in the world’s economy. I know I’m preaching to the choir, but just in case you haven’t already – please vote tomorrow, and pray that your vote will be fairly counted.

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