For five years, I've engaged -- almost daily -- in a kind of magical thinking (maybe that's too harsh: perhaps a kind of pleasant wishful-thinking daydream would be more like it) that, somehow, one could acquire and vet videotape of all the private moments of George Bush and his thugs. Imagine the lovely discussions you'd have: Kathleen Harris reporting on their efforts to steal the Florida vote; private meetings with Karl tracking the progress of their little creation, The Swift Boat Liars; sitting around the bunker with Dick and Don and their oil industry buddies, laughing it up while divvying up America; George telling his buddies -- in 1999 -- how his biggest priority would be to invade Iraq and get the guy who insulted the Bush family.

And now, thank the gods!, a little tiny piece of my fantasy has come true! For once, the bastard and his minions can't deny it. They can't say it didn't happen. George Bush KNEW that Katrina was on its way. He KNEW that it posed deadly danger to an entire city; he KNEW that if FEMA wasn't given the tools it needed, and with urgency, American citizens were going to die.

He did nothing; American citizens died. And -- THEN the bastard LIED about it on national television. No half-lies, either. No mixed messages. No way to say, "Oh, you're just misinterpreting his words." No -- none of that. HE LIED. Absolutely, with his usual idiot-boy monkey look ... doubtless the same look that never really fooled daddy, but otherwise held him in good stead all the time he was growing up and lying about this, that or the other to his teachers, his college professors, his TANG commanders, his employers, the girlfriends he was cheating on, and all the rest.

Only THIS time is can't work. Not at all. Because we have it on tape!

If the Democrats will USE this -- if, if, if!!! -- they could, I swear, bulldoze him into the mid-20s on the approval chart, and the GOP along with him. Make the little cretin totally toxic!

This should be done around the time of the '06 elections, of course, but even with six months of delay I don't think there will be ANY good response the GOP can cook up in the interim, save for each individual Republican candidate just trying to distance him or herself from Bush.

I can see the ad now. Images of pre-Katrina, clips from the news and weather stations. The narrator intoning about how EVERYONE seemed to realize a grave threat was approaching. Then a clip from the interview with Diane Sawyer, Bush saying "No one could have forseen what happened." Then, the narrator, "He was lying. The proof: videotape of George Bush BEING WARNED EXPLICITLY about the threat." (Show clips from the video). "He was warned, but he didn't care ... and hundreds [thousands?] of Americans were killed as a result. And then, rather than face up to it like a man, George Bush LIED TO ALL OF AMERICA."

(Remember how the Republicans impeached Bill Clinton because, ah, "he lied"? Sure, Bill was under oath -- but it was about sex, a private matter. Shrub wasn't under oath, to be sure, but on the other hand IT WAS ABOUT HIS CRAVEN INDIFFERENCE and brazen incompetence which resulted in massive numbers of deaths. Lordy!)

Use it in the election, a tool to mow 'em down like the wrath of the gods! I'd say use it for an impeachment drive, but -- face it -- unless we take Congress (one or both houses), impeachment is as likely as snowballs in hell.

In any case, I'm not out of superlatives. I'm re-energized with them! Because for once, our superlatives HAVE INDISPUTABLE EVIDENCE backing them up, of the kind even the dimmest Kool-Aid-drinking rightwinger can't deny. Today, Ed, is a good day!

I sure hope he's right.

Update: Blogger Jon Swift, "a reasonable conservative" who "get[s] all [his] news from Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and Jay Leno monologues," has a view of the Katrina-briefing story from the right.