This is not a time for levity

Because, unfortunately, David Remnick is right:

Remnick writes, "Bush had been unmasked in all his insularity, arrogance, and executive incompetence.... But the lessons that Bush is likely to derive from the complex of recent disasters will not automatically lead to a more considered, modest, and moderate Presidency." The emboldened attack Bush faced for his nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court came not from the left, but from conservative ideological radicals, "leading members of the true-believing Republican Party." More than three years remain in President Bush's second term, Remnick notes, and, "in his anger, and after all his many failures, the President, quite suddenly, seems unpopular, alone, and adrift."

Much as part of me wants to enjoy Bush's discomfiture, this is the logical result of events that began on the ranch in Crawford, and offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. That, however, was only, as the lawyers say, the "proximate cause" of the current situation. What it revealed was the "producing cause," which is Bush's "insularity, arrogance, and executive incompetence." At some point, he can no longer remain "in charge" and blame all those he delegated power to, for dereliction of their duties.

Responsibility has a way of finding you, and of being apportioned. But for three more years, he is still the President.

Which is not a pleasant thought, at all.