Bush's rhetoric isn't working anymore among the rising number of disgruntled. There will always be 30 percent of the American public who believe in flying saucers, Elvis sightings, and Bush.

But as I said, things are getting too uncomfortable on too many fronts for Bush to be able to pass some gas and smirk his way out of responsibility.

Senior citizen voters, to name one group, are finally fed up enough with Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security that it outweighs their conservative/religious leanings and they are ready to revolt.

America is turning brown and voting. Latinos who may have once thought Bush was on the right path with amnesty are now outraged that he has symbolically signed approval of a 700-mile fence. The Latino vote is moving more to the left than ever before thanks to Bush's feckless flip-flopping.

Parents with kids in K-thru-12 may have once thought Bush was protecting them from terror at home. Obviously that's not the case. Even though these parents are church-goers and reliable Republican voters, the Mark Foley thing has left such a bad taste with them that they are no longer to be taken for granted as a vote for Republicans. And nobody but a Fox 'news' loon would still believe "No Child Left Behind" was anything but an empty slogan.

The dark clouds are gathering over the Republicans and it's starting to rain shit down upon them.

I'm not ready to declare victory in the midterms, but the deadline for Rove to mount a last-minute October Surprise is fast approaching.

If they expect to pull this out, it's going to have to be one doozy of a surprise.

See, this is where refusing to pursue diplomacy for five years finally ends up: When you need the support of our so-called allies, they ask, "We'd like to help you George, but gosh, it's been so long since we've seen you around here.

George, in 2001 you got in a hissy and told everybody in the world to fuck off. You stomped out in a huff and said, "If you're not with us, you are against us."

Now George. You see how that works? You're all full of yourself. You fancy yourself a cartoon western cowboy. But life isn't like that George. Haven't you learned that yet?

You told us, "It's my way, or the highway."

Well George, it looks like you're the one walkin' the highway now. All alone.

Quite frankly George, we here in Russia and China don't really give a damn about North Korea. Kim ain't aiming his nukes at us. If he ever did, we'd french fry his ass to a cinder in about ten minutes.

So Georgie boy, we kind of like watching you struggling to get out of that huge bag of pride you zipped yourself into five years ago.

Oh and just one more little thing, George. The next time you lay hands on the leader of China and physically push him in the back, the way you did last time, we're going to give Kim permission to really really fuck with you!

You get it now, Chimpy boy?

Bush said yesterday that he was "proud to be standing with Dennis Hastert today."

You see, this is Bush's problem. His pride.

Pride is one of the seven deadly sins. In fact, it's not only one of them, it's the first one listed in the group enunciated by the Roman Church in the 14th century when people were big on defining and listing sins.

"Superbia" (hubris/pride), as it was called, is known as a "deadly" sin, one from which there is no repentance, because those who cleave to it are doomed.

Try as I may, I can't think of any other person in public life who loves to flog his pride as much as our Chimpy. He's proud of this and he's proud of that, he'll be glad to tell you on any occasion.

He's even proud of his ignorance. Although he knows better, he delights in mispronouncing the word nuclear as nu-cue-lar. He knows better. But he's proud of his assinine malapropisms and loves to poke his finger in the eye of all educated people. With just a single mispronounciation he is able to give the middle finger to those he fears are more intelligent than he is and at the same time he demonstrates to the uneducated and ignorant that he is one of them. Now that's pride!

Chimpy's pride is reinforced because despite the odds, he has made it to the top. He has concluded that he must be a genius because he is the president. He refuses to admit that it wasn't his own intellect that propelled him upward, but the hard work of a host of men and women, friends of his father mainly, that have labored many years to hoist him up in spite of his shortcomings.

That's pride!

I don't believe in deadly sins, or any other kind for that matter. But I still do believe in the wisdom of some old sayings. One I particularly believe to be true is: "Pride goes before a fall."

Let's hope it's soon.

No reason for Republicans to lose any sleep. Diebold and the other Republican voting machine makers are going to cook the numbers. No paper ballot? No fair election.

It's as simple as that.