The columns you write in the bright glare of the newsroom are clever. They shine like the dimes you're earning. The columns you write at home, in an office where you can have pictures on the walls and an ashtray, those columns seem slow, and more thoughtful. They nudge the line from newspaper column to novel.

The columns you see written on the ceiling above your bed, just before you go to sleep, those columns are true. Every word.

In bed on a cold night, toes up with a small gray cat curled into your ankle and the sweet breathing of your wife 10 inches away, you would expect peace.

But...

The invisible hand on the ceiling begins to write the story of every time you made your mother cry, treated a woman badly or let down a friend.

And, sometimes, the finger writes a column.

In this column, I am only passing on what I read on that aching, white ceiling.

I wrote last week that America is a Dust Bowl of the soul these days, which is the kind of thing you write in the office at home, with the boxing prints and family pictures on the walls.

The finger on the ceiling wrote something different and scorned me for being a hack.

America is a litter box.

A litter box is used by cats the way humans use a white porcelain toilet.

The cat, a naturally clean animal, steps lightly into the box, does what needs to be done, and then begins to scrabble with his paws, throwing up sand to cover his leavings. When he gets out of the box, it very often looks as though he'd never been in the box.

But, of course, he has been in the box, and the thin layer of litter only hides the evidence. If the litter box is not to become a swamp of digestive debris, someone (me) has to take a small plastic shovel and sift carefully through the litter, removing all that was left by the cat, and then pouring a bright white layer of new litter over everything. It's not difficult work, but you have to be thorough.

That is the best reason to impeach former Pres. Donald J. Trump, and to convict him. It is the best reason to pull the paycheck and the pension from any government employee who broke into the United States Capitol with a mob of dimwits. It is the reason to prosecute every participant. It is the reason why individual voters in individual districts have to defeat, or recall, any elected official who believes this was right.

Pawing litter over the mess with fine talk of "censure," and a vote along party lines will not remove what is under the litter, and it will smell worse as time goes by.

No. Scoop it out. Fire and prosecute and remove.

The law is a very small scoop indeed and, if used by thorough, careful, principled men and women, it can remove every trace of Donald Trump's leavings, and the air will smell better immediately. No one wants to put their hands in the litter box, but it is how you do the job. No thin layer of litter can hide what was left behind by Trump, by a mob, and by the tens of millions of Americans who voted for every kind of bigotry, misogyny and mismanagement.

We can never forget it, nor should we, but we can remove every bit of it that dirties our nation.

Politicians and people, steel yourselves and breathe through your mouths. It's time to clean the box.

To find out more about Marc Munroe Dion and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. Dion's latest book, a history of the litter box in American politics, is called "Devil's Elbow: Dancing in The Ashes of America." It is available in paperback from Amazon.com, and for Nook, Kindle, GooglePlay and iBooks.

Image courtesy of Tyler Merbler