The mere sound of Dubya's voice makes my skin crawl at the best of times: the petulance in it, the nervous laugh that always accompanies the dopey statements he thinks should be self-evident, the lack of any statesmanlike timbre whatsoever. Whenever he opens his mouth to address an audience, any audience, he sounds like a dull bully being called on the carpet and defending himself incompetently.

Hearing him yesterday on the news, though, I heard a chilling new steel in his voice. As he was chiding the House of Representatives for not rubber-stamping the Senate's wiretapping reauthorization bill, telling them they must do so immediately, I swear God it sounded like he was about to say, "That is why I have taken your congressmen hostage, and I will execute one representative every minute until this bill is passed. That gives you ... um, less than a week, heh heh, so let's hurry, people!"