White House Deputy Chief-of-Staff Karl Rove has errantly calculated that the alleged pre-9/11 national security mentality of Congressional Democrats is going to pay off for the Republicans during the up-coming 2006 congressional elections. Rove presumes that the majority of the Republicans, Democrats, and independents, who routinely vote in House and Senate elections, will favor the almost fascist approach to national security that has been espoused by the Bush Administration since October 2001. He seems to believe that most voting Americans will reflect the Republican mindset at the ballot box. I, on the other hand, believe that quite a few Republican senators and representatives are going to be out of a job come November. For how, in the name of sophistry, can a rationally minded person endorse a Republican Presidential administration, and a congressional Republican majority, that have deceived the American public into supporting an unnecessary invasion of a sovereign nation-state and the sustaining of a deadly terrorist insurgency? Rove seems to think that he can propagandize the information emanating from the White House in a manner similar to how Joseph Goebbels manipulated the German people into believing that the Jews were sub-human. Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein did not have terrorist connections with Al-Qaeda, nor weapons of mass destruction.

The Congressional Republicans immediately approved the resolution to pass and implement the Patriot Act and, later, the power of the President to declare war. I seriously think that Bush's low job approval rating will carry over to the Republicans who have supported the Bush doctrine since 9/11. These Republicans have demonstrated what Sen. Hiliary Clinton has called a "culture of corruption." The indictments of Tom Delay and Jack Abrahamoff are probably just the tip of the illegal iceberg. Republican arrogance will, no doubt, be detrimental to their popularity during the up-coming elections. I think that Karl Rove would be pragmatic enough to attempt to fix the elections, just like they were fixrd during the 2000 election in the various states where the Republican incumbent is most likely to be voted out of office. Therefore, I look forward to there being Democratic majorities in the House and Senate after the November elections./

Norton R. Nowlin holds M.A. and B.A. degrees from the University of Texas at Tyler plus one year of law school at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, in San Diego, California. In addition to the foregoing, Mr. Nowlin's educational prowess extends 70 semester hours beyond a master's degree in sociology, history, and law. Mr. Nowlin is presently a free-lance paralegal. He is also a published essayist, free-lance writer, and poet. He is married, the father of three grown children, and resides with his wife, Diane, in Mountlake Terrace, Washington.