It is a truth that when one resorts to violence, one has run out of arguments.

We've had the arguments.

I've just thought ot Karl's coup de grace...

Toward the end of Bush's second term, everything is fucked, everyone hates him... then "somebody" assassinates him. Accusations fly like leaves in a storm, and the usual suspects are blamed - terrorists, blacks, radicals, traitors, democrats... Whoever comes next, be it Cheney or Jeb or someone else, they ride in easily on a wave of anti-democrat hatred.

It depresses me that I believe this scenario is plausible.

"..the usual suspects are blamed - terrorists, blacks, radicals, traitors, democrats..."

I'll be interested if slow-moving, unlit, cars creep past your home some evening soon...

But I agree with you James. My estimate of the timing is different: I think they'll off their stone-dumb frontman early in the second year of the second term. Plenty of time to lock the country down.

First, my deepest sympathy. I wouldn't wish living in Bush's America on anyone. In the UK we lived under an absolute nightmare of a PM for a decade (although I'm not pretending that even Thatcher was this bad), and we got rid of her. It took rioting, among other things, but we did it, and the US can do it too.

Second, in the long run this has to be a good thing. He now has enough rope and given another four years he'll be dangling, legs kicking.

Good luck!

"He now has enough rope and given another four years he'll be dangling, legs kicking."

You may be right, joe, I just hope we survive that long through the inevitable nuclear terrorism, Argentina-style economic chaos, and global warming.

But thanks for the good wishes.

While people have made much of the first part of this quote from Ron Suskind's NYT piece, I'm not sure why no one's been commenting on the second half:

"I'm going to come out strong after my swearing in," Bush said, "with fundamental tax reform, tort reform, privatizing of Social Security." The victories he expects in November, he said, will give us "two years, at least, until the next midterm. We have to move quickly, because after that I'll be quacking like a duck."

I assume he means that the things he expects to accomplish in the next two years will piss everyone off to the point that the Republicans will get thrown out of Congress in 2006—leaving Bush a lame duck. This indicates he expects his actions to be irreversible in some fashion so that a Democratic Congress would not be able to affect them. Anyone else think that something a little odd is being implied here?