BUSH IS THE GREAT DIVIDER

Remember when Dubya campaigned in 2000 that he was a "uniter, not a divider"? He's had six years to prove what a big lie that was.

So he pushed further, now conjuring up the rhetorically pathetic straw-man argument: "If you don't think we should be listening in on the terrorist, then you ought to vote for the Democrats. If you want your government to continue listening in when al-Qaeda planners are making phone calls into the United States, then you vote Republican."

Intellectually insulting enough, right? Pathetic enough, right? Even laughable enough?

Not quite. For the night before, Bush had laid bare just how malodorous his politics have become, declaring at a fundraiser in Nevada that "It sounds like [Democrats] think the best way to protect the American people is wait until we're attacked again."

With those 19 words, Bush reconfigured the boundaries of political discourse, no matter how contemptible they may be, and no matter how contemptuous of common decency.

That any president of the United States could, would proclaim that the nation's loyal opposition is content, even eager, to countenance the potential slaughter of its fellow citizens just to score political points in the interim is so wretchedly loathsome, it leaves one slackjawed.