“Do you suffer from Sudden Bush Hatred Fatigue Syndrome?

It’s easy to diagnose. It often strikes at a bookstore. You walk in looking for a breezy summer read, and piled near the door are stacks and stacks of angry tomes about the perfidy of Usurper Bush.

He’s a tool of big oil, small minds. He’s a scarily devout Jesus-freak Christian AND the dupe of Saudi Wahhabist puppetmasters. He led the country to war on bizarre and fabricated assumptions — sure, Clinton made Iraqi regime change standard American policy, but that was just a scarecrow to stick in the field. Plus, George W. Bush is Satan! Just look at the cover of Jim Hightower’s book, where the author draws devil horns and scribbles a mustache and goatee on a Bush poster. Bush isn’t just wrong. He’s bad. Super-extra evil. Get it? GET IT? Oh, and buy this book.

You decline the opportunity. You wander over to periodicals and flip open the current Esquire. There’s a story on stem cell research. The author’s subtitle: “How the president is trying to kill my daughter.”

Yes, of course, you think. (How weary your inner voice sounds.) That’s precisely what he is trying to do. That is the president’s specific objective in life: Kill sick people. It makes him happy. Every night he puts his cloven hooves up on the desk and thinks of the people he’s offed today. Ahh. Life is good.”