Bush misleads because he can.

• Author: Schwab, Robert
• Position: Reinstatement of patriot act

WHY DOES HE DO IT?

Why does President George W. Bush claim in his State of the Union address--watched by millions--that his administration is going to push for energy independence and promote alternative-fuel technologies and then submit a budget to Congress that does no such thing?

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Why does he call for a reinstatement of the Patriot Act when he knows some of his own Republican colleagues have serious problems with the law's encroachments on American civil rights?

Why does he call for an extension of tax cuts for the wealthy while he cuts government spending on the nation's sick, poor, elderly and student populations--in the name of reducing a national deficit his administration has created and will barely acknowledge?

Why does he do it?

Bush does it because our president--despite resignations, failures and scandals involving some of his best buds from the first administration--remains intellectually committed to the anti-government, neo-conservative and anti-Democratic philosophies those buddies used to prop up his barely won first chance to run the United States government.

He does it because he still thinks he can get away with it.

Bush has been elected president twice based on his belief that he could get away with it.

He's waged a war on Iraq based on false information because he thought he could get away with it.

He's wiretapped people domestically without going through established court procedures because he thought he could get away with it.

And now, like his call for hydrogen cars in last year's State of the Union, he calls for energy independence and alternative-fuel development, knowing that his own budget won't finance it, because he thinks he can get away with it.

I've worked in Washington--inside the Beltway as people like to call it--and it's true that being immersed in the high-powered, heady experience of doing whatever you do in the nation's capital distorts your perspective.

People actually call the Midwest, for example, the "flyover" states of America. Buildings on the ground look like no more than bomb targets from 30,000 feet. You really don't see any people. We all know that from our own flying experiences.

In response to the president's budget, one of the Republican...