I was a finalist for the Pulitzer as a reporter.

The terrorists are going to believe the worst about America. They think we spy on everything. They think we kill everyone. They think - they don't believe that we believe in democracy, right? They don't believe we have limits on our government.

George W. Bush is a person who is totally disinterested in the world, uneducated. I'm not saying he's stupid. I don't think he's stupid. He's crafty as hell, but he projects well on television. And that's the real big problem. He is the perfect "what, me worry?" president.

Today anyone on the Internet can find out more about what you read, think, and earn than the secret police of Stalin or Hitler could have learned.

And new people come in, and it doesn't go along with their politics, and they fire me, end the column, silence a voice in Los Angeles. They can't silence it nationally, but they are able to do it there.

The publisher, Jeff Johnson, who has offered not a word of explanation to me, has privately told people that he hated every word that I wrote. I assume that mostly refers to my exposing the lies used by President Bush to justify the invasion of Iraq. Fortunately sixty percent of Americans now get the point, but only after tens of thousand of Americans and Iraqis have been killed and maimed as the carnage spirals out of control. My only regret is that my pen was not sharper and my words tougher.

I teach at USC, and it's obvious to anyone who teaches college students that they don't cover much modern history and certainly not the modern presidency.