And indeed, Mr. Blankley, the same decay in democracy has infected our own country in the past 8 years. We have a president originally installed by a 5-4 Supreme Court decision instead of a completed election who lied to us and the rest of the world in order to justify a brutal, unnecessary war (against a secular state--one of the few in the Islamist-dominated middle east you fear so much), and now tries to pawn off that act of unlawful aggression as a fight for democracy. He has walked all over treasured constitutional guarantees like habeas corpus, he has approved torture, and by attempting to declare himself immune from Congressional oversight, he is attempting to sabotage the balance of power our forefathers so carefully erected by creating the three branches of American government. This is indeed an era when democracy is taking it on the chin, and we can only hope that our next president will have the head, heart, and backbone so sorely lacking in our current president to lead us out of these dark times.

Masako must not have been paying attention. The 5-4 Supreme Court ruyling did not install George Bush into the presidency. It forced Florida to stop recounting votes, by Gore request, that continually showed Bush to be the winner. There is zero evidence that Bush lied us into a war. The best one can reasonably say is that he misled us. What he did, in fact, was convine the nation to back him in acting on a percieved threat. That's his job. It is the Congress who failed to do their job. They are still failing. So, the WMDs weren't there, but that's no tlying as Bush though that they were there. Nor was he the only world leader to think so. He was merely only the only one to do something about it after the world body agreed to do something about it. And let's not forget that if Russia, Germany, and France ahd not been recieving kick-back from the oil-for-food scandal, they would most likely have agreed to go along with us, which would have painted a very different picture. Also, the president always sold the war in Iraq as a part of the War on Terror which he always sold as a fight for democracy. Habeas Corpus is not granted to non-citizens by the constitution, nor do the prisoners in Gitmo fit the Geneva definition of POWs. That's not Bush's fault, he just happens to be right about it. And he only shields himself from congressional oversight when Congress is abusing their popwers in that arena. If anybody is to called guilty of blatantly violating the Constitution and sabotaging the balance of powers it is the Legislative and Judicial Branches. As far as presidential abuse of athority, Bush isn't the p[lace to look. You'll find much worse in the likes of Clinton, Nixon, Truman, Kennedy....even Lincoln.

It's not that there is anything wrong with having a different opinion, but facts are facts and you don't seem to have any.