To the editor:

The accomplishments of the Bush administration never cease to amaze. In a matter of a few months, these folks in Washington have managed to:

• Alienate our traditional allies.
• Drive NATO to the brink of extinction.
• Promote a tactical alliance between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein (who loathed each other up until then).
• Stampede the Looney Tunes dictator of North Korea to expel the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors, reactivate that country’s plutonium-producing facility, and threaten this country with nuclear-armed missiles (which, unlike Iraq’s, actually exist).

Now that must be a record of some kind.

Outside the U.S., people talk of the American empire. That makes Dubya our first emperor, I guess. George I. And, notwithstanding the media’s blindness on the subject, this emperor isn’t wearing any clothes.

Bob Fraga,

Lawrence