The Bush administration is considering a new expedition to the moon. Of all the half-baked ideas — among them No Child Left Behind and the tax cut — and blatant manipulative ploys to divert attention from real problems (like the USS Abraham Lincoln photo op) Bush and his staff have come up with in the past three years, this is surely the worst.

There is absolutely no reason to return to the moon, except to shift popular attention from everything Bush has done wrong in this term to something we did successfully more than 30 years ago, and something even Bush would be hard-pressed to mismanage now.

That Bush would even consider such an outrageous idea begs the question of where his motivations lie. Does he want to face the problems in this country and abroad head-on or does he simply want to get re-elected?

Right now in this country, there are serious problems with health care, employment, education, and security. Likewise in the world, there are the far-reaching issues of terrorism, AIDS, the environment and human rights violations.

While it is unclear what Bush intends to do on the moon, it is unlikely that any of these problems would be solved there.

The most likely reason for pursuing a manned trip to the moon, then, is to unify and distract Americans and ensure Bush’s re-election.

It is disturbing that Bush is willing to make this wild stab at capturing public imagination in order to get re-elected at the cost of taxpayers. The cost of a manned moon flight would surely run into the billions of dollars, with little return in terms of technological advancement or benefit to science. That’s a high price to pay for a country already some $500 billion in debt.

Most disturbing, however, is the obvious disrespect the Bush administration has for the intelligence of the American population.

With a proposed trip to the moon, Bush seems to believe the people of this country can be impressed with big shiny rockets and men playing golf on non-terrestrial surfaces — impressed enough that they will forget about the soldiers dying in Iraq, the children being murdered in Afghanistan, the seniors unable to afford prescription drugs in this country and the elitist economic reforms instituted by Bush himself.

This administration has repeatedly insulted our intelligence, with its constantly-changing justification for the war in Iraq, its signing of a Medicare bill that obviously favors big business and its overt displays of favoritism to campaign contributors.

Bush’s moon travel idea is the latest in that line, and it is reaching the point at which we say, “We’re not going to take this anymore.”