This is very curious: there's George Bush on my teevee, talking to me. Seriously: when's the last time you've seen this guy? Or heard him say anything? The Olympics? Gustav? Katrina?

George Bush stopped mattering to most Americans right around the time when his disapproval ratings catapulted under 35% (they're now at 19%). People are counting the days and hours until the November election. Some, I'm sure, are counting smaller increments even than that; a friend of mine has a keychain that tells her to the exact second how long it is until Bush gets wheeled away from the West front of the Capitol, after his successor's inaugural.

So to whom exactly did it occur that sending George Bush out in front of the cameras to sell his plan was a good idea? If Bush thinks something - say, a $700 billion pile of free money for Wall Street pigs - is a good idea, doesn't that virtually guarantee universal public rejection, driven as much by spite as experience?