Our nations founders feared that one flaw in democracy was that citizens would vote themselves largess and ultimatly cause the republic to fail. Low and behold, representitives in Congress have picked up this bad habbit and created a bit of a racket by buying votes in the form of "earmarks" and attempting to "bring home" as much federal largess as they can. To prevent this, our founders gave the President the responsibility to represent all the Nation's people and gave him his power of veto. President George W Bush's complete failure to use that power and veto any significant spending bills and force responsibility on our Congress has been a complete and utter leadership failure on his part. He has a sworn duty to lead both his nation and his party and use his veto pen when needed. He has only used this pen once and that was for a minor (but emotionally charged stem cell research funding bill). In this important leadership role he has been negligent at best.