My very first thought on 9-11: "What has George Bush done now?"

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was waiting for an elevator in downtown Oakland. A man ran up to me and cried, "They've just attacked the World Trade Center! The twin towers have been completely destroyed."

My very first thought was, "What has George Bush done now." A man who would steal an election, corrupt the integrity of the Supreme Court, cancel the Kyoto treaty, come out in favor of slavery at Durban, lead us into the worst depression since 1929, cheer on Enron as it gutted California and support every petty tyrant in the third world was, in my eyes, capable of anything.

In that first week after the WTC attack, I desperately tried to get to New York City to help out. All the planes were grounded (except of course for the Saudis) and so I consoled myself with putting out an anonymous flier denouncing George Bush as being (at the very least) asleep at the wheel. Stealthfully and surreptitiously, I posted my little Tom Paine broadside on the nearest telephone pole -- and ran like hell, afraid that at any moment I would be caught, jailed and sent off to Siberia (They hadn't yet invented Guantanamo).

Then a few of us stalwarts got on the web. Me and Tina and Roz and Gary and Lori and Kelly and Rita and Joe. From all across the United States, we found each other somehow. "Have you read what is in the Patriot Act?" we asked. "Did you know that Bush is planning to invade Afghanistan?" And "How did `terrorists' get their hands on US-made weapons-grade anthrax?"

Soon others began to join us in questioning George Bush's motives and skills. Paul Krugman. Molly Ivins. Dennis Kucinich. Helen Thomas. Michael Moore. Finally even the New York Times got on board. But none of us, even in our wildest dreams, could ever have possibly imagined on that sad day back in September 2001 what incredible lows America would finally sink to -- or that we would end up having a genuine Napoleon-complex nut case in the White House, roving through the halls of that esteemed symbol of America's honor with his hand thrust inside his jacket and muttering "I am the ruler of the world."