ONE OF THE REASONS, perhaps the main reason, that the financial deal failed to pass the house today is George W. Bush.

It's not merely that Bush began with a typical power-grab deal—a proposal that would hand enormous powers over to the executive branch without oversight.

It's not merely that Bush failed to muster his own party.

It goes much deeper than that. It goes to the entire last eight years of Republican rule, and the effect it has had on this nation.

More than any other factor, the one thing that blew a bipartisan effort to avoid the financial crisis that now appears to be happening was the mail and calls members of Congress were getting.

A large proportion of the American people revolted.

And why?

If this had happened during Bush's first year, we may not have liked the deal, we may have had doubts, but we would have trusted our representatives on two points:

We would have believed Bush when he described the level of danger. We would have trusted the government to do what it had to do to meet that danger.

But the fact is that a large segment of America did not trust that the President was telling the truth, and did not trust that Congress would hold him to a reasonable plan.

There's a direct connection between "weapons of mass destruction", "the war will be over in months", and the myriad other lies and misleads of the Bush administration, has left a legacy: a legacy of distrust.

The dishonest tactics used to mislead Congress on the need for war, and the tactics used to pass legislation like the patriot act, have left the people worried that they can't even trust Congress to see through Presidential lies.

This is the legacy of the Rove-Cheney-Bush machine. The damage done is much deeper than an economic crisis, or an immoral and costly war.

It's deeper than the loss of trust America has suffered around the world during the last eight years.

The damage goes to the heart of America, to our own loss of trust in our own institutions.

It goes to who we are.