THE PRESENT SUCKS. THE FUTURE, MAYBE NOT SO MUCH.

Well, in all likelihood none of the rest of you are surprised at this, but I am: The Washington Post/ABC poll says Hillary Clinton is up by 8 over Rudy Giuliani in a head-to-head matchup. In The New York Times, James Dobson reaffirmed that he wants nothing to do with a Giuliani-led GOP. And a Rasmussen poll says 27% of Republicans would vote third party instead of Giuliani.

I don't believe that last poll -- third-party candidates always poll much, much better well before the election than on Election Day, and this is Generic Pro-Life Candidate, not, say, er, Alan Keyes. But I've been the gloomiest Democrat in America about the '08 presidential race, and even I'm starting to think the Republicans are digging themselves a hole they can't get out of.

It's bizarre -- Repulican purists are in the process of destroying their second electable front-runner. First they snubbed John McCain, which made him pander more desperately to the far right, which didn't win them back but alienated moderates. And now they're sandbagging Giuliani.

Both of them went into this race with a frightening amount of crossover appeal. Both of them have, in the past, been shown tremendous love by the national media. They coulda been contenders, but their party's purists seem to have screwed it up for both of them (although Rudy could recover).

*****

Yes, yes, yes, the big New York Times article today, "Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations," is appalling. Yes, Bush and Cheney and many of their past and present underlings are war criminals. But I'll answer Andrew Sullivan's question: What are we going to do about it? Nothing. Congress will do nothing. The people won't take to the streets. You all know that as well as I do. This is all merely for the historical record.