LAST WEEK a federal appeals court judge compared the inauguration of George W. Bush to the ascensions of both Hitler and Mussolini, his point being that all three took power legally but were / are illegitimate office holders. “That is what the Supreme Court did in Bush v. Gore; it put somebody in power,” Judge Guido Calabresi told an audience at the American Constitution Society in Washington. “The reason I emphasize that is because that is exactly what happened when Mussolini was put in by the king of Italy. That is what happened when Hindenburg put Hitler in.”

Soon after his remarks came to light, Calabresi apologized in writing for how his “rather complicated legal argument” had been misinterpreted as political partisanship. Poppycock. His remarks can’t be interpreted any other way. The judge (a former dean of Yale Law School appointed to the federal bench by President Clinton) was obviously sounding a clarion a call to the ballot boxes this September, hoping to replace the current president.