John, now, now, now. My point is simply that there is a qualitative difference between a president signing a bill with which he disagrees and a president signing a bill which he believes to be unconstitutional. Impeachment? Come, come. I do live in the real world, possibly a different real world, however, than that in which the president apparently believed that it was politically essential to sign McCain-Feingold. Remember, he signed that bill on March 27th, 2002, barely six months after 9/11. I seem to recall he was rather popular at the time, but perhaps I’m mistaken.

More generally, I think that Ramesh gets it absolutely right. The war on terrorism is the most important aspect of the Bush presidency, and his handling of this alone more than justifies his re-election, but that is not a reason for the Right to hold off on vigorous criticism on policies with which it disagrees. “Dismissive Contempt” ? Here? In this genial and gentle Corner. Again, I’m with Ramesh on this. I don’t see it.