Orville Taylor, Contributor

He may not believe it but I bet when he reads the newspapers and watches the newscasts, President George W. Bush will finally realise that his party has lost control of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

He was one of the few remaining people who believed his rhetoric and his dogged adherence to his catch phrase "The American people." Unswervingly, he kept on making the same emotional appeal to the masses against all logic.

There are some who feel that Bush has not done badly in the overall development agenda for his country. The American economy is still robust, unemployment is not particularly high and industry is solid.

Despite the general belief that Bush's Republican Party is anti-black and racist there is only partial evidence of this. Believe it or not, George W. Bush has appointed more African-Americans to key positions than any of his democrat predecessors. It was he who made Colin Powell Secretary of State and then went a step further by replacing him with an African-American woman, Condoleezza Rice. It is irrelevant that Rice is considered to be an Uncle Ben.

Doubling aid

With regard to the motherland, Africa, Bush has committed to doubling aid within the next four years. This cannot be faulted. However, his record on the environment has been unimpressive. Having refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, he, perhaps due to his own interests in petroleum, has done little to prevent the destruction of our planet.

However, it is in his so-called "war on terror" that he has failed miserably. Going against international law and consensus, he decided to invade Iraq, allegedly in search of 'nuculear' weapons, which he was told by the United Nations' (UN) inspector did not exist. Apparently motivated by regime change, he went against the better judgement of Powell, who was his father's top military commander.

Wisdom

He also seemed to have ignored his father's wisdom evident in his book, A World Transformed. Bush Sr. defended his decision not to overthrow Saddam in 1991 because it "... would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible ... We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq ... There was no viable 'exit strategy.' Most important, "Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land.

Still, Junior Bush went in, full of religious zeal and believing that God was on his side because his mission was holy and just, and reacted harshly against all who criticised him. To have opposed the blind determination and clearly wrong policy was labelled unpatriotic. And to have attempted to guide him along the right path was seen as suggesting that he was not knowledgeable. Many patriotic Americans, including veterans who have fought for their country, were accused of betraying it simply for criticising Bush. There is a very familiar ring to this here.

Bush Jr. might not have had the benefit of our Reverend Phillip Phinn, who guides our Prime Minister, but surely his father's statement must be considered prophetic. Nonetheless, he chose to ignore the prophet and consequently has taken on the loss.

Iraq has been a dismal failure. More than 150,000 Iraqis have been killed. Thousands of innocent women and children have been maimed. Some 3,000 troops have lost their lives and those permanently disabled could be 10 times that. American soldiers have been placed in an ants' nest where they are easy targets for snipers, suicide bombers and other insurgents.

Bush has often boasted that since the invasion of Iraq there have been no further attacks of Americans on domestic soil. True, but the terrorists do not need to go to climb the mountain when it can be brought to them. It is like having pizza delivered.

Nevertheless, a few blind hypocrites who equated loyalty with refusing to point out his shortcomings, allowed him to fail. Now he probably knows his real pro-American friends.

His popularity was waning but he was too opinionated to treat it as significant. The polls showed a consistent decline in his ratings over the occupation of Iraq. Reality has hit him in the face because now he is a 'lame-duck' president without a Congress to back him.

One major casualty of the loss has been Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Not a man to show emotion, I cannot say what his feelings are, but since he has been booted I am sure his rump's felt it. What is worrisome though, is that Bush has replaced him with former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director, Robert M. Gates, who served under his father's administration.

Now, follow this logic, we understand that part of the reason that Bush believed that there were 'weapons of mass distraction' in 'I-rack' was the lack of proper intelligence from the CIA. If CIA 2.3 was off the mark, how useful will the earlier version 1.9 be? It doesn't compute!

By now, I am sure that you can see clear parallels between Jamaica and the U.S. He is the president but his party's support is weakening. His failure to act and take well-intentioned advice has caused his colleagues to lose their seats although he cannot be removed. Though supported by the religious right, he is no Moses.

His stubbornness and arrogance won't lead him to the Promise Land. There is no Joshua here out there, only a burning Bush.

Dr. Orville Taylor is senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Psychology and Social Work at the University of the West Indies, Mona.