At the risk of turning this blog into an endless list of political essays you should read elsewhere, here are a couple more:

High plains grifter: The life and crimes of George W. Bush is sort of a Cliff’s notes version of Molly Ivins’ excellent Shrub for people who don’t have time to read that. Incidentally, everyone who didn’t already read Shrub years ago should really do so.

The Great Divide offers a new approach to dividing the American nation into two: Instead of republican vs. democrat, it’s “metro vs. retro”. I haven’t read this yet, but it seems interesting, not least because in addition to being able to buy it from Amazon, you can also download the whole thing for free, which I heartily applaud.