Meanwhile...

While Washington, DC, continues to buzz with the latest batch of GOP scandals, particularly the Gonzales Eight, we lost another seven troops in Iraq.

But unlike some right-wing pundits, might accuse me of doing I don't rejoice in any of this. I know, as a student of history, that things have got to get worse, much worse, before they get any better. I wish I could cling to the belief that the darkest hour is only just before the dawn. But my heart is heavy and my prayers go out to a nation that is only being rent asunder.

I wonder how President Bush feels about all of this.

I wonder if you could ask him honestly right now, what would he say? People have compared his presidency to that of Richard Nixon or Warren Harding or even US. Grant.

Harding was a poor judge of character and is quoted as saying

I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies in a fight. But my friends, my goddamned friends, they're the ones who keep me walking the floor at nights!

Nixon was a mean son of a bitch whose own inferiority complex and massive ego led to his own undoing.

Nixon said, famously, I am not a crook.

Grant was probably one of the most honest, yet naive men to hold the office.

He noted, in the middle of his second term,

You can violate the law. The banks may violate the law and be sustained in doing so. But the President of the United States cannot violate the law.