Jim Hightower

It would be nice to think that your president is in touch with reality – or at least in shouting distance of the real world where the rest of us reside.

We know that George W lives in a bubble, but it still was a bit shocking to hear him say at a recent press conference that he had no idea that gasoline prices are shooting toward $4 a gallon: “That’s interesting, I hadn’t heard that,” declared our leader. Then, just to drive his cluelessness home, George informed us that America is not headed into a recession. This came as a surprise to many of his own economist, who’ve been saying just the opposite, and it was a laughable prognostication to America’s workaday majority, which has been mired in a real-world recession for months.

Even Bush has had to admit that there has been a “softening’ of U.S. economic growth, which led him to put forth a stimulus package of tax rebates last month. The rebates are to prompt you and me to rush out and buy more stuff made in China. This will certainly be stimulating to the Chinese economy. Most analysts, however, don’t see it doing much for our economy, but Bush won’t hear of doing anything more. “We’ve acted robustly,” Bush declared, using one of his favorite big words.

The nation’s governors, who reside a bit closer to terra firma than George’s ideological fantasyland, disagree. They’ve urged him to provide a real economic boost by turning Americans loose to work on repairing our country’s deteriorating roads, bridges, schools, water systems, and other pieces of crucial infrastructure. This would create good jobs at good wages. “No,” our leader responded robustiously. Various Bushites then fanned out to explain that, in Bushworld, infrastructure should be handled through privatization and tolls, not through public action.

It’s that sort of thinking that has earned a record-low 24-percent job approval rating for George's presidency.