If you can indeed know a man and judge him by the company he keeps, the triumvirate of Bush, Cheney and Gonzales is almost proof enough that each of them is a lying weasel on a truly spectacular, almost surreal, level.

The axis of evil does exist. It didn't have to follow us home. It's been here all along. And now it's figured out how to disguise itself through Herculian levels of equivocation, convolution, deception, duplicity, propaganda, and all things dark and deadly. (the dead in deadly being troops, constitution and rule of law.)

Their stranglehold will never be a house of cards, because while Congress convenes inquiries and issues subpoenas, they will continue to prop each other up like the poles in a wobbly teepee. Until we take them down entirely.

Impeach. Impeach. Impeach. All this talk about what it will do to the Congress and the morale of we the peasants, is just more propaganda. We're already paralyzed by the sheer weight of this corrupt administration.

Good ol' Al needs to go. So does Dick Darkly, and the Littlest Emperor.

Congress needs to quit stomping it's feet and rolling its eyes, and start doling out some serious discipline. Now. And start undoing the damage by bringing our troops home.

A little late on the uptake today...so I have to backtrack:

Tim said: "I'll try to remember the lesson of the past three weeks: In a world of forests and trees, we spend a lot of time here studying individual twigs and leaves. But when Election Day 2008 rolls around, the folks who have only a vague sense that there's something green over there -- the 41 percent who still think that Saddam Hussein had a hand in 9/11, or the 11 percent who think we've actually caught ol' bin Loggin' -- get a vote that counts just as much as anyone else's. That explains a lot about how we find ourselves where we do now, and I hope it will inform the work I will be doing from Washington."

I say: Welcome back. Others did a good job...but you always take it succinctly to the mat. And a day without Tim, is a day without a good infusion of the good, the bad and the ugly in the halls of power. How you did such a great job from Sacramento, I will never know. However...you're in D.C. now, the bar is raised. You're going to have to outdo yourself.

Thanks for letting us know that you don't just report the facts, you fear them as much as the rest of us.

No, I'm not a sycophantic kiss-up. I just think people should be appreciated once in a while.

Wrong. The "Decider", a "gut player" dismissed intelligence reports before 9/11 and derided the bearer of the reports. As this apparently absurd book points out "sometimes it's good to ignore information" and rely on your gut. On the other hand, maybe Bush had a "gut feeling" that if the U.S. was attacked, it was his ticket to covering his incompetence, insecurities, amorality, self-interest and cronyism with the seizure of our national liberties and unprecedented and illegally subscribed power. So that would make his gut right. It's not that farfetched to imagine Cheney dancing around in his bunker rubbing his hands together and cackling...this is just what we needed. Christmas in September.

There are many other places the administration has shown an astuteness that bears this article's unfortunate implication that "gut" can beat out science and reason.

Right. Cheney's energy pals had a gut feeling that if they sabotaged energy production, they could exploit the state of California into a crisis and bring home the big bucks.

Right. Putting evangelically disposed people in charge of the FDA would ensure that pesky things like women's reproductive rights would be derailed.

Right. Putting corporate "partners" (bribe is such an ugly word) in charge of areas like EPA and Fish and Wildlife would ensure that the good of a handful of greedy companies trumped the protection and public legacy of our natural resources.

Right. Putting insurance executives and accountants in charge of the VA would ensure that services were curtailed in the favor of keeping government coffers filled for no-bid contractors rather than spending money on repairing the bodies and lives of the dispensible photo-op props the President treats like uniformed slaves.

Right. Putting barely junior level lawyers from 5th rate colleges in charge of the justice system would create a culture of overzealous pursuit of narrow political goals without the incumberance of competence or professionalism. To the extent that one of them would even claim her oath of allegiance was to W.

Right. Putting the kids of family friends into positions responsible for our national health and well-being would insure that they would overrule the science of obesity in children in favor of the companies responsible for the nutritional collapse of our children's health.

Right. Putting a grandstanding pal with no experience in charge of FEMA would insure that New Orleans could once again be ceded to big real estate development (after the sediment settles) and all those pesky poor black people would finally be scattered to the winds.

Right. If trying to put a man of acknowledged shady dealings in charge of homeland security fails, put in a guy whose "gut" will keep us in convenient terror alerts when attention is uncomfortably focused on the above. Meanwhile, whose "gut" doesn't have any apparent concern about the need to actually do something to improve security. A bloodhound who will simple "point" at threats, even when they aren't there.

Right. Put draft-dodging failed neocons in charge of calling the shots on war. "Yeah, it's messy...but it will be GREAT for the economy!!!"

My gut tells me that this book is total crap. And shame on Farhad Manjoo for propping it up with so much implied legitimacy.