Does Bush have faith, or is he just gambling?

President Bush has a gambling addiction. Bush bases his policy on what he believes should be true or how he hopes things will turn out. This is the same mentality the gambler brings to the craps table. It can be said that the gambler is engaging in faith-based economics. He rolls the dice with the faith that the result will be in his favor.

Bush has shown us what a “faith-based” presidency would bring us. After four years, we have enough of a sample to make a judgment.

Bush had faith that America would not get hit by terrorists if he willfully ignored terrorism for his first nine months in office. Oops. Bush had faith that he could use former Taliban soldiers to hunt down Osama Bin Laden. Oops. Bush had faith that no one in his administration would actually write books about how he was manipulating intelligence to justify a rush to invade Iraq. Oops. Bush had faith that Saddam had an arsenal of WMDs ready for use against America. Oops. Bush had faith that Iraqis would welcome American soldiers with flowers and open arms. Oops. Bush had faith that he needed to secure only the oil fields in Iraq and letting the rest tumble into chaos would be okay. Oops. Bush held faith that the real nuclear threat in North Korea would not worsen while he enjoyed his looting of Iraq. Oops. And Bush held faith that Iran would get the hint (that we might invade them like we did Iraq) and not develop nukes in a hurry. Oops.

And that’s just the big-issue list.

Reading between the lines, Bush’s faith did prove true in certain areas. Such as, his faith that his brother Jeb would steal Florida for him and that the federal courts (including the Supreme Court) would win him the post-election lawsuit. He also held faith that he could hoodwink America into supporting his trumped up excuses to invade Iraq. Bush has held faith that his domestic agenda (all agencies being run by corporate lobbyists, unrestrained environmental destruction, undoing labor laws, repealing 100 years of social progress) remain obscured by foreign affairs and tax cuts that aren’t actually tax cuts. And right now, he’s holding onto the faith that enough voters are (wrongly) convinced that the war in Iraq is essential to the war on terrorism that they’ll overlook all his misleading and misjudgments and vote for him on Tuesday.

I, however, am holding onto the faith that American voters will not tolerate Bush’s pattern of bumbling his way through major policy issues. That they will choose the politics of reason and reality over the politics of faith and spin.

Too many times Bush simply rolled the dice. And too many times he came up snake-eyes.

The question this Tuesday is how many times are we going to hand Bush the dice. Isn’t it time for a new roller?