The Corner on NRO flagged this one: House Democrat Jim McDermott, fresh from denouncing American foreign policy in Baghdad before an uncritical George Stephanopolous, now says that President Bush is engaged in a "bloodless, silent coup": "This president is trying to bring to himself all the power to become an emperor — to create Empire America." You can't make this stuff up. I think the lesson to be drawn here is that a decade of relative peace has allowed a variety of radicals to get elected or re-elected without voter scrutiny of even the most extreme and paranoid views of the American political system. Next McDermott will be talking about politicians bugging the phones of their opponents.