George W. Bush has won an undisputed election.So what if he suddenly decided simply to declare himself president for life and abolish elections.No its not a left-wing paranoid fantasy, but Jimmy Carter endorses the idea on the op-ed page of today's New York Times. In remembering his favorite terrorist, Yasser Arafat, Carter writes:

In effect, peace efforts of a long line of previous administrations have been abandoned by President Bush and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. For the last three years of his life, Mr. Arafat was incapacitated and held as a prisoner, humiliated by his physical incarceration and excluded by the other two leaders from any recognition as the legitimate head of the Palestinian community. Recognizing Mr. Arafat's failure to control violence among his people or to initiate helpful peace proposals, I use the word "legitimate" based on his victory in January 1996 by a strong majority of votes in an election monitored by the Carter Center and approved by the occupying Israelis.

Yes Arafat won in 1996 like Bush this year. But as we noted in May 2002, new elections were due in 1999, and Arafat never held them. We can reasonably expect Bush to leave office on schedule, on Jan. 20, 2009--but if he doesn't, it would be "legitimate" by Carter's lights.

Carter probably is wishing things had gone better for hm so he could have done this.

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"...quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est." [...a sword never kills anybody; it's a tool in the killer's hand.]
(from Lucius Annaeus Seneca, "the Younger," circa 4 BC-65 AD