I’m writing this post through a service called ThisNext, a kind of social networking web site that focuses on shopping. People recommend things to buy, writing short reviews of them and arranging them into lists.

Among the items that are reviewed and recommended on the network are political bumper stickers – this one, for example.

I appreciate this bumper sticker’s effort to stretch Americans’ political memories. Back in the year 2000, America chose George W. Bush, believing his promise that he would bring honor and integrity to the White House. Barack Obama is offered by the sticker as a long-awaited fulfillment of that promise.

It’s a great message for Obama supporters, but I do want to offer a caveat emptor message: Barack Obama is making a lot of promises, just like George W. Bush did. We won’t know whether he’ll fulfill those promises until he’s actually President. Progressives, as much as anyone else, will need to watch Barack Obama like a hawk, and work to hold him accountable to his promises.

A caveat emptor for ThisNext too. ThisNext offers a means through which people can write articles like this, for their own blogs, on the ThisNext web site.

Think about it for just a second, and you’ll realize that people who write blogs can ALREADY write blog articles about bumper stickers, or anything else for sale for that matter, without the ThisNext widget.

Writing a blog article on ThisNext actually is more difficult, because it doesn’t allow the use of html. A blog article with no links? How useless is that?

Well, it’s actually very useful for ThisNext, because there is one link in this article – to the bumper sticker listed on ThisNext, which provides ThisNext with a source of affiliate income. How very convenient for them. How very useless for bloggers.

My experiment with blogging through ThisNext is done.

Post script: Dear Goodness me. ThisNext blogging is even worse than I thought. Not only is it super-controlling, stripping out html, it doesn’t even work properly. There’s supposed to be a bumper sticker graphic with a link for buying the bumper sticker in this article, but look for yourself: No graphic, and no link, is there.

Now I’m going to have to go back in and remove that garbage code, and place in my own link to the bumper sticker – direct, without any extra affiliate nonsense. Thanks for nothing, ThisNext. I’ll keep blogging for myself.

The more I see of social networking sites like ThisNext, the more I think that independent web sites are really the way to go for substantial networking. Making links and “friends” comes quick and easy on social networking sites, but so easy that the benefit is ephemeral, the relationships lasting just as long as a click.

We all know that America is in a lot of pain right now, and that a lot of that pain comes right from the Bush White House. 71 percent of Americans now disapprove of the job that George W. Bush is doing as President of the United States. That’s a record-breaking level. No other President, not even Richard Nixon, was disapproved of so much.

George W. Bush has been the worst President in American history, and it’s caused Americans pain.

From that perspective, the goal of the 2008 presidential election is to stop the pain. Who understands pain better than anyone else? Anesthesiologists.

So we see this bumper sticker, then: Anesthesiologists for Obama. Barack Obama is the presidential candidate who can most credibly break with the broken policies and failed ideas that have caused America pain. It’s Obama who can end the pain, and that’s why anesthesiologists support Barack Obama for President of the United States.

“No president has ever had a higher disapproval rating in any CNN or Gallup Poll; in fact, this is the first time that any president’s disapproval rating has cracked the 70 percent mark.”

Even Richard Nixon didn’t have this many people disapprove of him. Not even on the day he resigned.

Resignation. That’s a good word for what’s going on in America – and for what should go on instead.

Under George W. Bush, Americans have become resigned to a failed government and to international embarrassment.

What should have happened instead? Instead of the American people becoming resigned, George W. Bush should have resigned. Even Tricky Dick Nixon had the decency to resign. Even President Nixon had more integrity than President Bush.

So, we think the bumper sticker you see makes a pretty good one to mark the final year of the presidency of George W. Bush: At least Nixon resigned.