Murder, he wrote

If Michael Moore thought the Secret Service were persnickety when he stood outside the Saudi embassy, I wonder what author Nicholson Baker will come up against when he publishes his new book – Checkpoint.

The title sounds mundane enough, but the book is actually about two guys who sit around and discuss ways of assassinating Pres. George W. Bush. They never try in the book, but I wonder how many will buy and read this book wanting to live this drama at least vicariously.
In fact, this book's popularity and the widespread reaction could be an indicator of this country's political health. Will those who disagree with our president be willing to open their imagination to killing him? After all dissent is celebrated, but murderous thoughts (if only imagined) should be denounced.

This from the Independent of UK explaining the views of the book's protagonist:

Jay says he hasn't felt so much hostility against any other president - not Nixon, not Reagan. Jay says of Mr Bush: "He is beyond the beyond. What he's done with this war. The murder of the innocent. And now the prisons. It's too much. It makes me so angry. And it's a new kind of anger, too." At one point, he calls Mr Bush an "unelected [expletive] drunken OILMAN" who is "squatting" in the White House and "muttering over his prayer book every morning." At another point, he calls Mr Bush "one dead armadillo".

I wonder if Jay is a product of "firing up the base?"