We're sorry. Let us rephrase that...

"Ladies and gentlemen, your President."

Upon further review, VP Cheney was in charge on 9/11:

"Pursuant to the president's instructions, I gave authorization for them [hijacked passenger jets] to be taken out," Cheney told Rumsfeld, who was at the Pentagon. Informing Rumsfeld that the fighter pilots had received orders to fire, Cheney added, "It's my understanding they've already taken a couple of aircraft out."...

Cheney, who told the commission he was operating on instructions from Bush given in a phone call, issued authority for aircraft threatening Washington to be shot down. But the commission noted that "among the sources that reflect other important events that morning there is no documentary evidence for this call, although the relevant sources are incomplete." Those sources include people nearby taking notes, such as Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and Cheney's wife, Lynne.

In the 1970s, Laurence J. Peter wrote a popular book that sought to explain why so many positions in so many organizations seem to be teeming with employees who exhibit strong signs of incompetence. He concluded that "in a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence." This concept has since been known eponymously as the "Peter Principle."

Well, it's again apparent that the current President of the United States is actually several grades above his level of incompetence. Notwithstanding his failure to competently grasp the English language, there's continuously been questions as to who calls the shots at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

On countless occasions, the President has either not known or cravenly deferred to others when difficult decisions need to be reached. From intelligence reports leading up to 9/11, to the Plame leak, to prisoner maltreatment at Abu Ghraib, to the Chalabi mishap, and now to executive decisions on 9/11, the President has shown the resolve and decisiveness that he's ever wont to proclaim in his best John Wayne impersonation.

Yes, he's been decisive. He's "decisively" deferred to others and then conveniently pled ignorance when things go awry.

Will the real President of the United States please stand up? We hardly know you with all the rampant secrecy, subterfuge, and the fact that you rarely give press conferences. Looking back, I wonder if those who voted for Bush were aware that they were really voting for Dick Cheney for president in 2000? Has a VP ever wielded so much raw power?

If anything is clear in this mess we call the Bush Administration, it is that Rasputin, the mysterious monk who ruled Imperial Russia, is not dead. He was never executed. He's alive and well with a pacemaker and is hiding out in an undisclosed secret location somewhere in the Pennsylvania mountains.

Just beware, if you ask him any questions, you'll likely get a recording. That other guy is just a fill-in, a face man; he's better for the pictures.