"For the past three years, since President Bush took office, we have seen a widening credibility gap between what the administration says and what it does," Senator Ted (Chappaquiddick) Kennedy said.

The Michigan Survey Research Center has been doing surveys on what characteristics the American public wants in their elected officials. The center is well qualified to report on these findings as they have been conducting the same survey in the same accurate manner for decades.

Over those decades three characteristics have dominated the survey and have always generated nearly the same fixed percentage of support. Honesty has always come in at 90-95 percent; caring at 80-85 percent; and capable at 60-65 percent.

The Democrats have set out to attack the President Bush’s credibility and thereby defeat him in the next election.

To that end on Friday, six House Democrats asked the HHS inspector general to investigate whether Richard S. Foster "faced inappropriate pressure to withhold information from lawmakers regarding the underestimating the cost of prescription drugs would have on American taxpayers.”

In another ironic twist, Democrats asked that the ads -- required by law when Congress passed the prescription drugs and cleared by the General Accounting Office as being appropriate -- be voluntarily pulled by local TV stations airing them because they are misleading.

What is misleading? That the American public is once again going to take wealth away from the young and working and give it to the elderly?

The multi-front attack on the President’s credibility is the reason Sen. John Kerry was so quick to counter Bush’s TV ad that showing Kerry would raise $900 billion in new taxes. Kerry responded that he proposed lowering middle-income taxes and creating jobs.

It is true that Kerry proposes offering a middle income tax cut. However, this is only possible if Kerry ends the War on Terrorism or doesn’t fulfill his other promises of free college education and increased funding to K-12 education, day care and pre-school education, 100,000 of new firefighters and 100,000 of new policeman to pay of their endorsement and new inspectors at the ports for more union workers and hundreds of other proposals.

Yes, Kerry will raise taxes by $900 billion if he does what he says he’ll do, if elected. Then again, Kerry has hardly ever stayed on one side of an issue long enough to do anything.

Much of the façade of the argument against President Bush’s credibility comes over the war and weapons of mass destruction. It is true that these weapons have not been found as we expected. However, the Democrats would have us believe that we are not better off with the capture of Saddam Hussein. And that is not true.

Because of our actions in Iraq we are making greater progress in the War on Terrorism. Yemen is doing more to capture Al Qaeda. Other countries in the region -- Iran, Libya and Syria -- are now less of a threat. In the Democrat response to President Bush’s weekend address, Chappaquiddick Kennedy ridiculously said:

"President Bush spoke in terms the intelligence community never used (and) called Iraq a 'unique and urgent threat’”, Kennedy said.

"As we now know, it was all a distraction. There was no immediate threat. No nuclear weapons. No persuasive link to Al Qaeda. But we went to war anyway."

Thank God we did, and may our prayers be with all the victims of the War on Terror. It will be a long war, but because of President Bush we will not have a 9-10 President like John Kerry in a 9-11 world.

Some day we will get around to talking about the real credibility problem – John Kerry. Some day we will discuss Kerry’s economic plan, criticized by Allan Greenspan as isolationist and dangerous to our economy and the world’s. Some day we will discuss Kerry’s votes to gut our defenses and the CIA. Some day we will discuss how Kerry wants to ally with France and Germany who have said that they want to reduce America’s power in the world. Some day we will discuss Howard Dean’s accusation that Kerry has no credibility because of his constant reversal of positions over his long tenure in congress.