When one's opponent can't be called venal or stupid, call him (or her) "sick".

A number of years ago, I read a short essay in Harper's by a psychologist who suggested that the unrealistically optimistic were just as mentally unbalanced as the perpetually pessimistic, but that society doesn't perceive unreasonable happiness as a problem to society, and so it isn't treated as an illness.

This was indirectly corroborated by the daughter of a woman with bipolar disease when she said that the most difficult concept to understand about her mother's illness is that the manic phase, when she is extremely and unrealistically cheerful and energetic, is just as much a manifestation of mental illness as the depressive part of the cycle.

I have been lied to and taken for a ride, and I'm really angry.

I believe that the interests of the ordinary citizens of this country are being sold to the highest bidder.

I believe that we are potential victims of some of the most powerful and secretive legislation seen in this country, and that the exercise of said legislation by a bunch of people in whom I no longer have even the slightest modicum of trust can and may corrode the traditions of liberty and free speech in this country.

And as the sprinkles on the cone, our national reputation as the defender of justice is taking a beating among the other nations of the world. I realize that there are those who don't care about this, and say that we can still be the defenders of justice even if we have to shove it down the throats of the ungrateful, wretched beneficiaries of our largesse. I don't share their views: justice must be just in its delivery as well as in its objectives, or it isn't justice at all.

I also believe in mercy, but that's another discussion.

In the face of all this, a little pessimism is realistic and healthy. It prepares one for the long hard job of building back what has been destroyed. Not that things will look the same.

I have begun to look at the Bush II Administration as a wildfire. I can help to dig trenches and pray for rain, while hoping that our house doesn't burn.

So, I see your canard and I raise you une oie served up in the same sauce: You're up too high. Take your lithium.