Bush's two-sided world--you're with us or you're a terrorist

I'm glad that democracy is my choice of government. If not, I guess some would think I had to be a terrorist in the president's view.

Democracy versus terrorism--that was the implication of President Bush's tone in a joint press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.

The president's simplistic view of the world continues to isolate our country in the real world. Ever since Saddam was toppled and the occupation became a nightmare, Bush and his advisers have struggled to find the appropriate response to sell a doubting public.

If Iraq isn't already in the grips of a sectarian civil war, it is dangerously close to one. The daily death rate of Iraqi citizens continues to climb. Reinforcements have to be called to the capital. How messy can things get?

Bush was warned this could happen. Recall the words of then Secretary of State Colin Powell: If you break it, you own it. For all the manpower and national treasure the United States is pouring in, we literally own it along with the fragile government of Mr. Maliki.

Vice President Cheney should never be allowed to forget those reassuring words of so long ago. He told us the military would be treated as liberators, not conquerors. Since then, we've been mired in trying just to maintain a semblance of order amid chaos and misery.

Recently, the White House issued a "fact sheet" to outline what it said were Bush's foreign policy successes while in office. It didn't make the headlines.

Bush continues to view the world only in post-9/11 dimensions. You are for democracy or the bad guys; you are for us or against us.

The president once likened his situation to President Harry Truman's after World War II and the Marshall Plan.

With a big apology to the late Lloyd Bentsen, Mr. President, I wasn't a friend of Harry Truman's, but you are no Harry Truman!