Glenn,

The picture on the cover of your book seems to be popular. Charles Tiefer uses it for his book, Veering Right (http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10281.html). That gives me the excuse to recommend another of his books, The Semi-Sovereign Presidency. I'm not sure if you've read it (I've only begun reading it myself), but it details the elder Bush's evasion of Congress in the governing process, including his widespread use of signing statements. You're probably more in the know about this earlier practice than I am, but much of the coverage of W's use of signing statements treats it as a new practice.

Keep up the good work,

There is too much to comment on here, so a few quickies:

First, Glenn, you twice assign righteousness first to Fred Thompson and then to the media defenders of the administration. I will only point out that it is self-righteousness which they possess. True righteousness would not conscience the state of our nation right now.

Second, you rightly say "Those who objected too strenously, who used terms such as "criminal" and "lawlessness" or who raised the spectre of impeachment -- the tool created by the Founders to redress executive lawbreaking -- were branded as radicals or impetuous, unserious partisan hysterics." Let's remember that those very Founders were themselves radicals and revolutionaries. Perhaps we should begin to wear that smear more proudly.

Finally, your recent book talks about the Good and Evil mindset of Bush and many in his administration. That very mindset is one of the primary reasons his actions go unchecked. We sound shrill when we sound the alarm because so many people have, consciously or not, bought into the Good and Evil paradigm. In that worldview, the bad guys wear black. The Devil is ugly and behorned. Evil is obvious. Therefore when we point out the subtley garbed evil which has taken over our country, we sound like whacko alarmists to even the more mainstream readers. We have seen our democracy sink slowly into its present state. Like the proverbial frog in slowly heating water, we are largely unaware of what is happening to us.

We need to stop being distracted by the supposed issues confronting us. Iraq, Iran, Libby, what have you. They are important and real, but they are also window dressing to distract us from the both urgent and important issue of the hijacking of our stated principles. In the coming election if we do not choose our representatives and a President who are committed to a return to these principles, the rest is inevitable.

Ok, one more thing. If we're serious about all this, then we really should have been raising a fuss when Clinton was pardoning all of his cronies too. Our founding principles are not a partisan issue. It is going to take real strength to wrench this system back into the hands in which it belongs: the people. We can't do that if we have a partisan agenda or are seeking revenge.

Glenn, you concluded your post by writing "The religious views of our political leaders matter and ought to be open much more to examination and questioning. That is particularly true when they continuously tell us, even if we don't want to believe it, that their beliefs and decisions are grounded in theology and religion and moral absolutism, not politics or pragmatism."

From their rhetoric, we see that the religiously motivated apply the same view to the secular liberal. They believe that a person's faith should be on the table for examination and questioning. They, however, would come to very different conclusions than secular liberals about the relative value of those beliefs. By what common yardstick are we to measure two ideologies that are placed in opposition (even when that opposition is not always accurate or necessary)?

The problem is that there is no questioning or examination that can adequately probe their beliefs or move the believers from those beliefs. Their beliefs are self-evidently true to them because they come from the Bible. They are even immune to questioning from other Christians who have a very different interpretation of the same book. These particlular folk are not people given to deep questions about religion. You've seen the evangelists on TV. They talk, lecture, shout, exhort and the people nod their heads and "oh yea". There is no examination. There is no questioning. Deep thought leads to scary questions. Better to let God, the preacher, and the President deal with such weighty issues.

Fortunately, not all Christians treat their faith this way. But since George and certain of his followers do, examining and questioning those beliefs is not likely to yield much from them.

If greater awareness and deeper discussion of these issues is to occur, it cannot be simply along the secular/religious line. It must be intra-religional (yeah, I just made that word up). The rhetoric is too strong right now, certain words too poisoned to have a dialogue about the value of secular pragmatism versus blind faith. It must be a conversation about the merits of informed, examined faith versus the limits and evils of blind faith.

The only way to address these religious zealots is by engaging thoughtful believers. You won't change the zealots, but you will deny them the ground that they have falsely claimed that all people of faith agree with them -- that they represent all Christians. They don't. Never did. Other Christians need to step up and call these zealots to task. Only along those lines will any ground be made among the public that predominantly thinks of itself as Christian.