Begin with the wimp factor. No president has looked this impotent this long when it comes to defending presidential powers and prerogatives.

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The budget has grown nearly 50 percent on his watch, and he is vying to become the most free-spending president ever.

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This kind of behavior has given the impression that George W. Bush is more eager to please than lead...

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He (Bush) behaves as if he were in an amusement park, pursuing a hobby rather than a calling.

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The key indicator is The Smirk. It pops out indiscriminately -- in times of peril as well as moments of mirth. It gives bystanders the sense they’re dealing not with a political heir to Lincoln, Reagan or George Bush, but with an exhibitionistic frat boy who has poked a hole in the bottom of a beer can and wants an audience to watch him pop the top.

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He (Bush) inhabits a political Oz, where the colors are happy and the tough decisions can wait until the oracle speaks. When he stumbles over abstruse matters of foreign policy, for instance, he actually jokes about his cluelessness.

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This is how frat boys behave when they know the class nerd is going to take their exams for them.

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George W. Bush and his colleagues have become not merely the custodians of the largest government in the history of humankind, but also exponents of its vigorous expansion.

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