I'll readily concede that, in words, you haven't always been 100% supportive of Bush. I was making an observation about actions, your willingness to go to bat for Bush 100% of the time, to step up and try to debunk each and every news report and rumor and opinion that wasn't 100% supportive of Bush. I think I'm a little bit justified in doing it in a way that you found a little bit annoying, because I find it annoying--that is, disrespectful--the way you dismiss every negative judgment of Bush as based solely on irrational partisanship and in no conceivable way the conclusion of a rational thought process.

(But thanks for attending to the social nicety of trying to exclude me with that "Bowser vs. Robert" distinction, but out of solidarity and fraternalism I cannot possibly accept it. Bowser may sometimes get his facts wrong, but his heart is right. I'm not at all offended to be grouped with him, thanks anyway.)

But that's very familiar territory, isn't it? What's more to the point is how the situation's changed, yet you're as steadfast as ever in your defense of Bush. I find myself pinging you from time to time, sending out little verbal pulses to check your position and see if you're still on the same course. And to some degree you're right that I don't get it, because to my increasing amazement, you remain resolutely on the same heading steaming full speed ahead, heedless of the gathering storm clouds and the calving icebergs ahead.

The captain of the Titanic stayed the course too....

That Presidential matchup in the Zogby poll was interesting. Aside from the not-surprising result that Bush loses to everybody who once attained the office, I was pleased to see Carter coming in second behind Reagan. That poor guy's taken an undeserved savaging from the Right in recent years, in my opinion. Don't you guys feel a little bit ashamed of beating up some old duffer who spends his sunset years building homes for the poor and puttering around in the garden of international election monitoring? But I digress...

You just had to bring up the ham sandwich line, didn't you? Actually I enjoy it, because it means something different to me than it does to you. I get that you think you're insulting the intelligence of people who voted against Bush. But to me it's just an expression of how badly Bush has done as President, that in effect a vacancy in the Oval Office would be preferable to the guy holding it now. You betcha I'd vote for a ham sandwich over Dubya. Too bad that that's basically what the Democratic Party chose to run in 04...do you realize, Tom, that with the ham sandwich line and chortling that Kerry still would lose to Bush in that Zogby poll, you're acknowledging that the only reason Bush got reelected was because his opponent was astoundingly weak? Talk about damning with feint praise!

Ya know, when I consider the awful mismatch in the 04 election, I'm inevitably reminded of the machinations in '72 by which the Republicans used dirty tricks to knock out stronger candidates to ensure that Nixon faced McGovern in the fall. I think that a lot of shoes have not dropped yet in today's Washington, and that there will be many more reports to look forward to over the next three years.