Noting that first there was Michael Moore's movie, "Fahrenheit 9/11," a crude quasi-Marxist fantasy about the war in Iraq filled with distortions.

Then there was the July 8 fund-raiser for John Kerry in New York, at which Whoopi Goldberg "fired off a stream of vulgar sexual wordplays on Bush's name in a riff about female genitalia," as one newspaper put it. Paul Newman said that Bush's tax cuts were "borderline criminal."

Now there is a book by a major publisher about two men having a conversation regarding killing George W. Bush.

One passage reads:

"He is beyond the beyond. What he's done with this war," rants a character named Jay. "The murder of the innocent. And now the prisons. It's too much. It makes me angry. ... I'm going to kill the [expletive] ... I'm going to assassinate the president."

The book is by Nicholson Baker, winner of the 2002 National Book Critics Circle Award and, writes columnist James Glassman in the Naples News, "a darling of the New York intelligentsia. Baker's bestseller, 'Vox,' which Monica Lewinsky gave Bill Clinton as a gift in 1998, was about phone sex between two 'obsessive, yuppie masturbators,' according to Kirkus Reviews."

Baker's new book, "Checkpoint," is about political murder, Glassman explains, calling Checkpoint "a long conversation between two men about assassinating President Bush. Yes, killing the sitting president of the United States."

One character, Jay, calls Bush "an unelected [expletive] drunken oilman" who is "squatting" in the White House and "muttering over his prayer book each morning."

He says Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have "fought their way back up out of the peat bogs where they've been lying, and they're stumbling around with grubs scurrying out of their noses."

Jay goes on to describe methods of murdering the president, including radio-controlled flying saws that are "ultra-sharp and they're totally deadly, really nasty." Other methods: a gun and a remote-controlled boulder.

Glassman then quotes this shocking statement from publisher Knopf proclaiming, "Baker wrote 'Checkpoint' in response to the powerless seething fury many Americans felt when President Bush decided to take the nation to war."

He adds, "(Never mind that the October 2002 votes on authorizing the president to use force in Iraq were 77-23 in the Senate and 296-133 in the House.)"

"I wanted to capture the specificity of that rage," said Baker. "How do you react to something that you think is hideously wrong? How do you keep it from driving you nuts?"

Simple. Get your hands on radio-controlled flying saws that are "ultra-sharp or a gun and kill the president because you don't like him. Shades of John Wilkes Booth."

Knopf, Glassman writes, expects a big initial sale, but "is clearly defensive. Says Knopf weakly, "Baker's book does not suggest violence is ever an appropriate response."

Oh?

Glassman concludes with this piece of advice for John Kerry. While "he may not be responsible for the rantings of the likes of Moore, Goldberg and Baker," he could at least "strike a blow for decency in America – and, coincidentally, help his own cause – if he would forcefully denounce the murderous hysteria in Hollywood and Manhattan. A candidate who lacks the moral integrity to take a stand against these mounting outrages doesn't deserve to be president."

Don't hold your breath, Mr. Glassman.

Editor's note: