DOES PRAYER MATTER? IF IT DOES, HOW SHOULD I PRAY TOMORROW?

Bush has an 18% approval rating in New Jersey. In New Hampshire, Republican Senator John Sununu, who has rubber stamped every single policy Bush has set up to the Hill, just declared that he won't campaign with Bush in his state. Last night I was listening to the radio when I was driving to see a rare Bastard Fairies concert and the talk show host has asked who thought Bush should be impeached. I guess I listened for an hour. Only two people didn't favor impeachment. Both favored trial followed by... severe punishment well beyond impeachment (think Benito Mussolini or Nicolae Ceausescu).

It was conventional wisdom when I was in college that Nixon picked Agnew to be vice president because Agnew was so atrocious that he both made Nixon look relatively good and served as a kind of break on any impeachment plans. Once Nixon had gone insane though, members of both parties got rid of Agnew first... before dealing with Nixon.

Tomorrow Bush is having some routine brain surgery and the most hated man in America will take over as president. People all over the world will be, no doubt, conflicted in their prayers.


UPDATE: WILL THEY ALL JUST GET AWAY WITH EVERYTHING?

Glenn Greenwald thinks retribution time is coming long overdue. But it needs to come from us-- we, the people, the victims of Bushism-- not from God.

There is no magic force that is going to descend from the sky and strike with lighting at George Bush and Dick Cheney for so flagrantly subverting our constitutional order. The Founders created various checks for confronting tyrannical abuses of power, but they have to be activated by political will and the courage to confront it. That has been lacking. Hence, they have seized omnipotent powers with impunity.

At this point, the blame rests not with the Bush administration. They have long made clear what they believe and, especially, what they are. They have been rubbing in our faces for several years the fact that they believe they can ignore the law and do what they want because nobody is willing to do anything about it. Thus far, they have been right, and the blame rests with those who have acquiesced to it.

It has been six months since the Democrats took over Congress. Yes, they have commenced some investigations and highlighted some wrongdoing. But that is but the first step, not the ultimate step, which we desperately need. Where are the real confrontations needed to vindicate the rule of law and restore constitutional order? No reasonable person can dispute that in the absence of genuine compulsion (and perhaps even then), the administration will continue to treat "the law" as something optional, and their power as absolute. Their wrongdoing is extreme, and only equally extreme corrective measures will suffice.

UPDATE: THE NATIVISTS ARE RESTLESS

The drooling imbeciles and keyboard warriors on the extreme fringes of the right are all worked up into a lather over Cheney officially becoming Chimpy-in-Chief tomorrow. One of the sillier of the GOP sites asks its readers if Cheney should pardon Irving Libby (aka- "Scooter"). They actually offer 5 choices. 38% checked off "Yes- And, frogmarch Pelosi to prison for violating Logan Act." Right behind that with 23% was "Bomb Iran," closely followed by "Yes- with great fanfare" (22%). The 4th highest vote getter was probably too snarky for most wingnut readers but 12% picked "Yes- but only in his final minutes of office." And, predictably, only 57 people (5%) checked the box most Americans would pick, "No- let him rot," although I'm not certain if the always self-victimized right-wingers are aware that the Scootster is hardly rotting, unless they're talking about inside the pornographic mind that created this:

At age ten the madam put the child in a cage with a bear trained to couple with young girls so the girls would be frigid and not fall in love with their patrons. They fed her through the bars and aroused the bear with a stick when it seemed to lose interest. Groups of men paid to watch.