Here's the letter I just wrote to my congressperson, Ms. Pelosi. To find and write to your congressperson, go to http://www.house.gov/writerep. You'll need your full zip code, which you can find on the mailing label of any magazine to which you subscribe.

Dear Ms. Pelosi,

I am a voter in your district.

I urge you to call for the impeachment of George W. Bush in the matter of surveillance of American citizens. This behavior is plainly and manifestly in violation of the law.

Chris Pyle, a professor of politics at Mount Holyoke College and an expert on surveillance, has been quoted in Salon.com as saying that if Congress does not stop Bush from disregarding the law, "then we need not argue over the PATRIOT Act. We do not need the PATRIOT Act, because the president can do anything he wants in time of war. He can ignore all the criminal laws of the United States, including the laws against indefinite detention and against torture."

In a phrase: a government of men, rather than laws.

In a word: dictatorship.

George W. Bush must be stopped.

Impeachment NOW.

Respectfully yours,

(your name)

You might want to consider pasting in the Salon article so the congressperson or staffer can read it there and then. I bet in this case Salon wouldn't mind.

I also sent this to Diane Feinstein. You can find your congressperson at http://www.house.gov/writerep; senators can be found at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

Dear Senator Boxer,

Impeach Bush and Cheney NOW.

NOW. NOW. NOW.

I'm sick of the lies, the incompetence, the cynicism, the violence.

They jail people without trial. They torture people. They lied about WMD's. They broke the law to spy on Americans. They handed obscene windfall profits to the oil and pharmaceutical companies. They have ignored the plainest evidence that the icecaps are melting. They whistled while New Orleans died.

Our ports are undefended, our energy prices are soaring, Islamic theocracies are building nuclear bombs, Iraq is dissolving in a chaos of blood and flame.

These people have grotesquely twisted ideas of governance. All they care about is money and power, and to hell with the ordinary people of America.

I'm sick of it. I'm so sick of it. I want to see Bush and Cheney impeached. Then I want to see them put on trial for war crimes and violating the Constitution. I want to see them taken away to jail in leg irons.

Then, maybe, we can have our beloved country back, with its values of decency, generosity, democracy, and honor.

Impeach NOW.

Not next year, not next month. NOW.

NOW. NOW. NOW. NOW. NOW. NOW.

Remember all the people six weeks ago saying, "Oh, Hamas will never win the election. They'll gain seats, but they'll never take power. It's impossible."

Then Hamas did just that.

Remember all the people saying, "The Soviets will never let their satellite countries go and the Berlin Wall will never come down"? Then Solidarity and the collapse of the East German state proved them wrong.

You guys -- just because something seems permanent now doesn't mean it will stay that way. Have a little imagination and courage. Voter revolts happen all the time. I think the Democrats can take back both houses in November, and I hope to God they begin impeachment proceedings the very next day against both Bush and Cheney.

To those of you who say "What would that solve?", remember that impeaching the heads of a criminal administration would send a powerful message: that no one, not even the President, is above the law. It'd say to the world that we're ready to start fixing the damage we've done. It would be an epoch-making event. Let's make it happen.

I really enjoy articles that give me an unvarnished look into other peoples' lives. Too often they're overlaid with an unpleasant sheen of bitterness, but Mr. Birkenhead strikes just the right note of rueful good humor. Thanks for being candid and funny, Mr. Birkenhead, and I hope you get The Call, whether for writing or acting.

I'm a cochlear implant user, and I was appalled by the way Limbaugh speaks, apparently sincerely, of wishing to hear normally again while in the same breath sneering at the stem cell research that could do it. In my blog today I wrote,

So what is his position on stem cell research really? It’s very hard to tell. It seems to me that this is what happens when an ideological zealot tries to assimilate a fact that is at odds with his worldview. You get this weirdly half-sincere, half-sneering kind of discourse. It’s sheer incoherence, is what it is; it’s like watching two trains collide at high speed and spew wreckage in various directions.

Not only is Rush Limbaugh ignorant and callous, he is irreconcilably conflicted with himself. He is the beneficiary of decades of scientific research, yet he sneers at science; he looks ahead to benefits to come, yet he attacks their scientific basis in the very same breath. There is something desperately wrong with this guy.

You can see the whole entry on my website, http://www.michaelchorost.com (scroll down the main page.)