Such belligerent reviews of my work have come along less frequently as I have grown older, not so much because I have learned to keep my lip on a leash, but because I am harder to find, a good deal larger, and heavily armed.

  Still, what goes around, comes around, if you ask for it long enough. And since most jurisdictions frown on gunplay in refutation of even the most pugnacious literary criticism, I'm almost certain to find myself sprawled cockeyed on a barroom floor someday, wondering just what the hell happened, and why many people who were not laughing before are applauding now.

  But Enough About Me: What Do YouThink About Me? This sort of overweening self-assurance regarding one's own worth, powers and station in the world, coupled with a parochial ignorance born of self-absorption, seems a particularly American failing.

  I suspect that, like me, George W. Bush thinks he's too cute for words, many of which he doesn't understand. His incessant squawking of "smoke 'em out of their holes, get 'em on the run, bring 'em to justice" brings to mind a fumes-addled parrot chained to a perch in a meth' lab. And it is not unsatisfying to dream of someday giving him a smack in the smirk with a rolled-up copy of his upbeat approval ratings, or maybe the USA Patriot Act.

  Indeed, it seems painfully obvious that Dubya spends even less time than most of us in creative introspection, examining his motives, entertaining dissenting views and considering consequences.

  No, with God on his side, and plenty of bucks in the bank, it's Dubya's way or the highway; exit, stage left, pursued by John Ashcroft screeching, "Traitor!" Then it's off to Crawford for a well-deserved rest, pumping .22 longs into prairie dogs that remind him of Osama bin Laden, who is still making videos while trotting from one smoking hole to another.

  Another Nattering Nabob Of Negativism. As an arrogant, underachieving loudmouth myself, a grizzled veteran of rhetorical combat during the Vietnam war ("Commie!" "Nazi!"), I've had that love-it-or-leave-it anthem sung to me before. Happily, Americans have run smarter, tougher and meaner guys than this out of town on a splintery rail before—anyone remember Richard Nixon and John Mitchell?—when they felt that the balance between security and liberty was tipping a little too far in the direction of what George Carlin calls "funny hats, armbands and a list of people they intend to visit at 3 o'clock in the morning."

  No, what frightens me a quarter-century later is that so many of my fellow citizens—many of whom were marching for peace when it was their names on the low-number draft cards—suddenly approve of undeclared wars with nebulous aims; of the rounding up of the usual unfashionably hued suspects for indefinite detention, which is not nearly as amusing in real-life America as it was in "Casablanca"; and of a spurious president who considers a popular-vote defeat a mandate to govern by executive fiat, as if our legitimately elected Congress were an oil painting, which frankly is what it has been acting like for the past three months.

  "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety," warned Ben Franklin, another American cartoonist with little use for kings. Ashcroft would have clapped a wiseguy like that in irons for giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and sold his printing press to Rupert Murdoch to cover the court costs.

  Kinda Makes You Think. Maybe Not. The criminal brutality of 9/11 was quickly followed by a nationwide sense of shock, as men and women turned blankly to one another and asked, "Why do they hate us?"—a question that was still worth the asking despite its being so long overdue.

  Sadly, the rare interrogative quickly metamorphosed into the traditional exclamatory—"Charge!"—as we sought refuge in the familiar: flocks of B-52s massing like malignant pigeons, sycophantic jingoism from the jabbering empty skulls on TV, and cynical hucksters feathering their vulturish nests by wrapping themselves, or their products, in the stars and stripes.

  "Go forth and buy!" proclaimed the Consumer-in-Chief, and we did, eagerly snapping up Range Rovers, Excursions and Yukons as gas prices and interest rates conveniently took a dive, thus ensuring that the oil industry will continue to have us by the plums with a downhill pull for some time to come.

  "We got you a new CD player," purrs the button-down daddy in the latest Lexus ad, before Muffy parts the curtains to see her brand-new luxury auto. Is it so difficult to understand why a hopeless young man gnawing on a shred of boiled goat in a barren wasteland might consider the notion of a $60,000 CD player on wheels an affront, might wish us ill, even act on that wish? He thinks God is on his side, just like Dubya does. I wonder whose side God thinks He is on.

  Thus, as one of the least auspicious years in American history comes to a close, I suggest that we once again try to reserve a few minutes for reflection, introspection, maybe even transformation. Turn off the TV, read a little history, look in the mirror. Try once more to figure out why they hate us.