I find the letters that claim Blumentahl must "hate" Bush to write such an article to be disingenuous, inarticulate, and obviously unaware.

This article sets forth the failures of the Bush Administration during the past year. The fact that these particular items are failures is not to be debated. They are, pure and simple, the failures of a president who is not interested in the welfare of the country he governs.

There is no "hatred" here - rather, Sid Blumenthal is merely applying Justice Holmes famous prescription for "Fresh Air & Sunshine". A prescription this corrupt and criminal administration badly needs to counter its paranoid obsession with secrecy.

For 2006:

Elect Democrats or progressive Independents and take over the House and Senate.

Repeal the Patriot Act or come up with one that ACTUALLY works.

Repeal these silly give-aways for the ultra rich and ultra rich corporations.

Tax the shit out of these oligarchs who've made tens of billions of dollars gouging the public for the price of gasoline and heating oil, OR make them contribute to those whose heating bills went through the roof this winter.

Indict Karl Rove.

Block Sam Alito's march to the Supreme Court by any means necessary. This man is just the kind of extremist the president likes and the rest of us should fear.

Let's see. What else?

Oh yes.

Investigate the charges that the president broke the law by ordering secret surveillance on US citizens without a warrant.

Investigate fully what role the president and vice president played in the outing of a CIA agent in order to discredit a man for questioning the claims for war in Iraq.

Indict Bill Frist on charges of insider trading.

Agree on a timetable for withdrawal of forces from Iraq. I'd like them out immediately or soon thereafter, but I am willing to accept consensus around this.

And finally...

Hold the president accountable for his crimes and approve articles of impeachment against him, the vice president, and any other co-conspirator.

Failing that, at the very least, make George W. Bush and his insane "imperial presidency" irrelevant for the next 2 years.

And you'll notice I didn't even mention pro-choice issues, civil rights issues, or other so-called "wedge issues" that seem to be dividing us right now. We can't really address those until we deal with the corruption in our midst.

Yes, this will sound like liberal blathering, but it would be nice to actually see our elected leaders DO THE RIGHT THING instead of the politically expedient thing.

This should keep us all busy for a while. Let's get to work.

Usually I depend on Sidney to scrape clean the bottomless chum of Bushian incompetence, fraud and wholesale evil. This is why I was dissapointed to see the 11th hour disgrace of the NSA domestic spying scandal absent from this low-light reel of 2005. I can only hope Mr. Blumenthal had a very early dealine before the holidays and not that he too is falling into the hypnotic self censoring MSM stupor that was also a halmark of this year in politics.

"...the tide turned against him" ??

The "tide" - political or otherwise - did not turn against George W. Bush. He's been treading water ever since he took up residence in the White House. The man is incompetent and he's surrounded by ideologues blinded to reality by their own self-righteousness. His administration is doomed to mediocrity at best. I just hope he doesn't sink the rest of us on his way down.