Since President Bush first took office, I have been appalled and ashamed by his every action. He and the crooks and cowards he has appointed to every position in his cabinet have pillaged and plundered our nation without mercy, all the while wrapping themselves in the cloak of God and country. The God I was taught to believe in and the country I was lucky enough to be born in, the United States of America, stands for truth, justice and liberty. George W. Bush and his political cronies have broken every law, both legal and moral, and have dared us, to our faces, to do anything about it. It is high time that all of them are brought to justice. Our streets, our schools, our health care system, our environment, and our economy are all crumbling or already in shambles because of the poor decisions they have made. I weep for the brave, beautiful young men and women in the armed services who have been killed putting their lives on the line to defend this country, and for what?

For a bunch of lies on top of lies, that have only benefited the richest and most powerful -- people like Dick Cheney and his other employer, Halliburton, along with all of the other oil, energy, and defense contractors. Thousands of our citizens died on 9/11 because of George Bush's incompetence and yet people still blindly follow him and continue to believe his lies. If someone handed me a memo with the title "Osama bin Laden determined to attack the United States," I would have had the good sense to pay attention, but he didn't. Why? Because it suited his purposes at the time. He and his group of misfits were determined to invade Iraq (since before he even took office as president) and take their oil and whatever else they could get their hands on, regardless of how much innocent blood was shed in their greedy pursuit. They have been running our government as a criminal enterprise and it is time they are stopped. When are we going to wake up and smell the mocha java?

There were no weapons of mass destruction long before we ever went to war. It has also remained abundantly clear in my mind that there was no link between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein (until we created one by invading Iraq). Why doesn't anyone ever mention the fact that people like Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were allies of the U.S. when we were fighting the Russians in Afghanistan and trying to depose the Ayatollah Khoumeni in Iran? Over and over again, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and the rest of the gang have continued to spew out their twisted, mangled lies and half-truths that constitute their political spin. I hope I live to see the day when they are all tried as war criminals. I also hope that we can get them out of office before they destroy our great country forever.

We are in debt up to our eyeballs with China and Japan as our largest creditors, facing the largest deficits in our history, and now we are going to have to borrow more money to pay for all the damage that the hurricanes wreaked along our coastlines. The administration won't even consider setting a date for withdrawing our troops from Iraq. We are spending money hand over fist there and accomplishing nothing! Where do you suppose all that money that is missing in Iraq has gone? Maybe to some of the same people that stole billions of dollars from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Treasury of this country, which has also never been talked about or investigated. Why are we rarely told the truth by our government or our media? In my opinion, this president has stolen two elections, by using his daddy's rich friends (who've been bailing him out all of his life because everything he has touched has turned to manure) and Supreme Court allies, and through outright voter fraud, and now we're supposed to believe that he can deliver freedom and democracy to Iraq? The recent vote by the people of Iraq (who, like most Middle Easterners generally don't appear to be able to agree on much of anything) of 99 percent in agreement with their new constitution is also highly suspect. I just hope we can all wake up from this nightmare soon. The only joy I can derive from the whole situation is thinking about how Bush and Cheney and their chums all thought they were all above the law, and how something so simple as running their mouths too much looks like it will finally be their downfall. I'm sure they thought it would always be business as usual, and guess what? Justice may finally prevail. May God have mercy on their pitiful souls.

(Cook lives in Napa.)