Can an American give me a concise explanation?

He still has two more years to go in his term. Presidential elections are every four years, he's only served two of this term. He'll be done in '08.

We have a 3 part system, executive which is the President, who is elected every 4 years, he is like the chief executive officer for a company. The 2ND part is the legislative, they pass laws, they consist of 2 houses, House of Representatives and the Senate. The representatives are elected and states with larger populations get more representatives then say Montana, which is gigantic size wise but has a population around a million. The writers of the Constitution were so wise that to offset the power of the populated states, the Senate only gets 2 members each. So the power of cities doesn't overwhelm the states with small populations. The 3rd leg of our system is the judicial, the court interprets the laws. We ideally want a system of checks and balances so we don't have too much power presiding within one group. So recent elections have put back that balance that had been missing for several years.

The American people have basically told George Bush, we don't agree with what has been going on and the party you belong to isn't doing a good job, we are voting in the people who have been sidelined by your power, which is the Democrats.

Typically the Democrats focus more time and energy on things like social justice and civil rights as opposed to worrying about estate tax and making sure the rich aren't burdened by environmental laws and things like that.

Okay so it's like this:

Every two years we in America have what are called congressional elections. As an example I live in Tampa Bay Fl, which is the ninth congressional district of this state. Every two years I vote for a representative (house of reps.), every six years I vote of a Senator (senate), but every four years we have a separate election for the executive branch (president).

One party can control the house, but not he senate, or the senate, but not the house, or neither, or both, but it doesn't have anything to do with the presidency because they're two separate branches of the federal government; legislative (congress) executive (president)

Hope that helps.

The executive branch is an elected President who serves a four year term...he is not a Prime Minister...we have something called separation of powers to create a system of checks and balances in the government...so, the fact that the legislative branch (House and Senate) changed hands has no impact what-so-ever on the President

Because the elections for the House and the Senate are on off years to the presidency.

We just did the House and Senate..in 2 years we do the presidency. Two years later, the House and Senate again.

So far, cwdc and Richard W have given the best explanations. I'll add that this country has had "divided government" like this quite often. George W.'s predecessor, Bill Clinton, also had his party lose control of Congress, and that was during his first term rather than his second term. Clinton, a Democrat, had to deal with Republican majorities in both houses of Congress during 6 of his 8 years in office.

okay. the presidency is not determined by the who wins the house or the senate. but whoever "wins" the house of reps or the senate has greater power to influence the laws passed for the country.

In some countries (Like Great Britain or Canada), the party that wins the election names the leader (Prime Minister).

In America, the Leader/President is elected separately.

It's quite possible to have a President from one party and legislators from another.

he was already elected president in 2004, and winning the house and senate means that as a republican, he may now find it hard to pass policies he has while republicans were the leaders because they oppose each others' views..this does not automatically kick him out of office