Recently, the Voice received a letter from a reader who said, and I quote, "Could you please tell Abby that I love her writing but leave the political commentary to others."

First of all, dear reader, thank you. It's not often that I hear from readers, so usually I feel that people are perusing the rest of the Voice assiduously and then using the back page, where my column generally is, to line their ferret cages.

Second, let me assure you that I feel your pain. I really do. I hate writing about Politics—in fact, I hate Politics in general. I am all about The Arts—I have never had the slightest interest in government, governance, economics, foreign relations, military history, or for that matter, anything real. My idea of a really good conversation is to dish the dirt about Victorian sexual mores, the history of the Gothic novel, the wonders of Virginia Woolf, or for that matter, the soaps. I did not intend to waste precious hours of my life in discourse about the men of limited intelligence who rule this nation.

So I wholeheartedly agree with you, reader, and I wish I could take your suggestion. However, here is the problem. I would really like to leave the political commentary to others. But apart from Paul Krugman of the New York Times and a bunch of lunatics on the internet, I can't find many of these others who are doing the job for me. Instead, I read a bunch of mealy-mouthed discussion of this administration's policies that falls short of actually criticizing them.

The other day, I heard someone on NPR refer to Bush as the latest "Teflon President." I recall this phenomenon from the Reagan Administration; no matter how stupid the things Reagan said were, or how many scary, weird things he did, the press treated him with respect and refused to hold his little peccadilloes, such as the Iran-Contra scandal, against him. I later read somewhere that this was because un-der Reagan, the press corps was treated to fun plane rides and served giant martinis.

Whatever the case, I spent the latter half of the 1980s reading the British news-papers, which weren't so kind, and wondering what the hell was going on over herehad someone put something in the water that made everyone think that Reagan was (1) truly in charge of his ad-ministration, despite his obvious disinterest in every aspect of governance except for public appearances, and (2) not stupid?

So imagine my chagrin at having to live the same nightmare over againonly this time it's worse. Bush was not really elected, but he treats his Supreme Court appointment as if it were a conservative mandate. Yet the pressthese "others" to whom you refertreat him with kid gloves, for reasons that have yet to be disclosed. (My suspicion is that it's the giant martinis again.)

Contrast this with the treatment Presi-dent Clinton received. Well before Monica, do you remember "Haircut-gate"? The Whitewater investigation, which turned up nothing? The speculations that Hillary had cold-bloodedly murdered Vincent Foster? For eight years, Bill Clinton could not even eat a chocolate-chip cookie without some reporter noting that he had gained a few pounds, or worse, that the cookie had been paid for with public funds, and that a multi-million-dollar cookie investigation was to be launched immediately.

So, gentle reader, while I sympathize with your views, I'm afraid I cannot leave the job of sounding the alarm on the present state of things to these martini-sodden reprobates. (Clarence Page, if you happen to be reading this because The Voice was tossed onto your lawn, I don't mean you. However, you are probably just using this column to line your ferret cage.)

Because here are a few of the things that drive me crazy:

•When Bush landed an airplane on the deck of an aircraft carrier (while, presumably, sitting in the pilot's lap), almost no one brought up the fact that during the Vietnam War, Bush managed to pull strings to join the National Guard and then went AWOL. Thank goodness, Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune did stop to note the irony (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/showcase/chi0305060077may06.column).

Here is what Zorn says about media coverage of the 2000 presidential election: "A search of all news publications and programs archived in the LexisNexis data-base for the last seven months of the 2000 campaign found 114 stories referencing Bush, the Texas Air National Guard and Alabama. Over that same span, nearly 10 times that many stories1,076 to be exactreferenced Al Gore and the expres-sion 'invented the internet,' an allusion to the bogus charge then haunting Gore that he had wildly inflated his role in the online revolution." (Chicago Tribune, 5/6/03).

Clearly, some journalists are not too soaked in gin to note the discrepancies in the media treatment of liberals vs. that of conservatives, but Zorn is the exception that proves the rule. When Bush strutted around in his flight suit on the evening news, making female suburban voters (one of his worst demographics) swoon, you did not hear Peter Jennings commenting about how hilarious it was that someone who had not only dodged the draft but then actually deserted would pull this stunt. (For more information, see www.awolbush.com.)

•When we decided to invade Iraq, I voiced several objections: (1) I did not believe that Saddam Hussein's "Weapons of Mass Destruction" were really a threat to us because no real evidence had been provided that they were; (2) I was sure that the war would cost a fortune and would bankrupt our educational system, of which I am a part; (3) it seemed inevitable that corporations with links to Bush and Cheney were in line to get all the post-war contracts; and (4) no matter what we said, we were an occupying force and would probably never get out of there.

I have since been proved correct on all four counts, though the fourth is still pending. If I was right about these things, knowing as little as I do about world affairs, it seems to me that someone else should have made more of a fuss about them at the time.

· It drives me insane that after spending a fortune on the war, the House and Senate, despite lukewarm voter support, just passed a $350 billion tax cut (which will be much more costly than that figure indicates), which forces state and local governments to either raise taxes or slash programs. The tax cut will benefit rich investors enormously, the middle class not very much, and the poor, not at all. At the community college where I teach, students, many of whom are economically disadvantaged, have been hit with a tuition hike, and employees will undoubtedly be furloughed (translation: lose a week's pay). Meanwhile, I heard on NPR this morning that in Iraq, teachers' salaries just went up; I don't know what that means, but that's what they said. Did they point out the irony of this? No, they did not.

•Then there's the Patriot Act—don't get me started.

Reader, my friend, I could go on—and on, and on. Every morning I wake up, look in the newspaper, and cry, "How did this happen???" I feel like I'm living in the beginning of an Orwellian nightmare, and if no one changes the course of events, it seems clear to me that we will end up living in a hellish society in which the rich are ever richer, the poor, poorer; in which no one can afford an education or health care; in which our civil rights have vanished, and people routinely "disappear" and are never heard from again; in which a handful of corporations controls the globe; and in which we all go on every day pretending that everything is fine, because Fox News tells us it is.

So, reader, as much as I'd like to go back to writing jolly columns about home improvements, I have a problem: I'm just too damn mad, and scared.

But basically, I agree with you—I should not be writing about politics. I should not have to. Politics suck, and writing about them is a dirty job.

But someone has to step up to the plate and say that our country is being run by a bunch of corporate weasels being led by an idiot who is packaged by advertising wizards to look like a world leader. So I guess it has to be me.

Because Peter Jennings is too busy swilling the presidential martinis.