Dear President Bush,

I voted for you in the 2004 election. It wasn't because I thought you were smart, competent, well-spoken or charismatic; you are none of those things. I simply did so because the alternative was too frightening.

But only by a small margin, as it turns out.

Every day, our troops are dying in the streets of Iraq, doing their best to maintain order in a situation that has been completely mishandled. Had you been honest at the start and told us we were going there to remove a horrific dictator responsible for genocide and other crimes against humanity, perhaps the American public would be more supportive now. Instead, you made a facile case for an imaginary cache of "weapons of mass destruction," which turned out to be an elaborate work of fiction.

You are neither a general or a soldier, and you should not presume to command the greatest military on Earth.

You have done far more to bring a tenuous and possibly unsustainable freedom to Iraq than you have at home. You used the tragedy of 9/11 to political advantage, ram-rodding the Patriot Act through Congress on a wave of paranioa and cries for "National Security," and you have embarked on the widest and most flagrant campaign of eavesdropping and wiretapping in United States history.

If you are unfamiliar with the 4th Amendment, then you are not fit to serve at even the lowest positions of government, much less its highest.

You have appointed military officials to all the highest positions in government, your newest achievement being Michael Hayden as the director of the CIA. Hayden previously worked on the aforementioned wiretapping projects following 9/11. The last time generals ran a republic was in Rome in the 3rd century. It caused a century of chaos, followed by a long and ugly fall.

If you don't know your history, you have no place leading a nation.

You have chosen to "stack" the Supreme Court of this country with Justices whose politics echo yours. I won't lie: I'm a Libertarian, and I'm glad things are shifting to the conservative side. However, engineering this shift to coincide with your own views is nothing but cheap politics, and it's unacceptable, particularly given your outspoken desire to intertwine religion and politics. There's a reason the 1st Amendment states, "…Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." Let me sum it up: that means that the laws of this country are not to be guided by the church, or its opinions on how things "should be."

If you don't know the Constitution, you are not fit to serve.

In spite of (or perhaps because of) your total lack of regard for the rights of American citizens, you seek to allow our country to be invaded and over-run by illegal aliens from our southern border. We should be closing our borders, not enstating "work amnesty" programs. Local unemployment is a national embarrasment, and you want to flood the market with foreign criminals?

Don't give me that line about how "they do the jobs Americans won't do." We have a large pool of unskilled labor in this country, largely because of the collapse of our public school system–something you've done little to address. There are Americans to do these jobs, but they've been driven out by the distortion of the wage-scale engendered by cheap illegal labor–something from which you've no doubt profited. At this rate, the United States will be a second-world nation by 2025 or so. Congratulations.

If you have no regard for the nation's sovereignty (I know it's a big word; get Condoleeza to expain it to you), then you are a traitor to your country and should be removed.

While we're at it, perhaps you can explain why we're paying so much for gas, and why it has nothing to do with the Middle East. Go ahead, tell the truth. The refineries are acting in concert with American investors to hoard domestic supplies of oil. They buy in bulk when it's cheap, then trickle it back onto the market to keep prices up. The Middle East is nothing but a smokescreen and an excuse. You're an oil baron. Go ahead. Own up.

I watched while you let the Assault Weapons Ban sunset with as little fanfare as possible. You could have showed some spine. You could have stood up to the anti-gun lobby and asserted the importance of the 2nd Amendment as a Constitional right. You could have shown the American public what an attack on individual sovereignty gun control represents, but you chose not to. Why? See the above paragraph about individual liberties.

"(…) the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms."
–Samuel Adams, Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

The true purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to give us the right to resist the government, should it forget its place and start acting like a dictatorship. This is precisely what happened in New Orleans last year. I don't blame you for the slow response of the Federal government–this was due to incompetence and a complete failure to act on the part of the state and local governments. What I do blame you for is allowing the wholesale suspension of property rights in the aftermath.

The California Highway Patrol was called in to help, and they were allowed to do house-to-house seizures of the very weapons citizens needed to protect themselves from looters and profiteers. You said nothing. You did nothing. The Blackwater security company was called in to aid the effort, marking the first time since the Spanish-American war that mercenaries have been employed by the government on American soil. Care to explain, Mr. President?

Of course not. You're just as bad as the Democrats in this regard. You're more than willing to sacrifice personal liberties in the name of National Security. Note to those reading this: any time a government uses the words "National Security" to dodge its own laws, those laws cease to have meaning. Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither. Those who stand by and allow it to happen will get neither.

I don't blame you for alot of the things the Left does, nor do I buy into the conspiracy theories (though they form an outline that's getting harder to ignore). I've studied enough to know that the President is nothing more than a figurhead for a coalition of corporate interests, but never before has it been so plain and obvious. I was wary of a major power-shift during a war, and the opposition stood too close a chance at winning, so I swallowed my conscience and voted Republican for the first time in my life. Trust me, it was the last time I ever plan to do so.

History will not judge you kindly. Nor has the American public. If the Democrats retake the corridors of power next year, it will be your doing. Congratulations.

Oh, and it's pronounced "nuh-clee-ar," something I'd think the leader of the (formerly) free world would know.