Jeffrey Smith in The Washington Post: “In speeches, statements and news conferences this year, the president has repeatedly declared a range of problems “unacceptable,” including rising health costs, immigrants who live outside the law, North Korea’s claimed nuclear test, genocide in Sudan and Iran’s nuclear ambitions.” Unfortunately, he doesn’t actually have any plans to cope with any of these “unacceptable” problems beyond railing at the skies. And the unacceptability of the world is rapidly on the increase:

In the first nine months of this year, Bush declared more than twice as many events or outcomes “unacceptable” or “not acceptable” as he did in all of 2005, and nearly four times as many as he did in 2004. He is, in fact, at a presidential career high in denouncing events he considers intolerable. They number 37 so far this year, as opposed to five in 2003, 18 in 2002 and 14 in 2001.

Which is just to say that willpower, empty rhetoric, and idle threats won’t change the world. You need to be willing to grapple with the actual world. Instead, as things get worse and worse, Bush reacts by escalating his level of self-righteousness.