Over the last ten or so years, whenever things have been exceptionally interesting in US politics, I have found myself wondering what Hunter S Thompson would say about it. Usually I wouldn’t find out until a year or so later, when his next book came out.

But now we have the net, and in particular, HST’s latest article in Rolling Stone:

Did you see Bush on TV, trying to debate? Jesus, he talked like a donkey with no brains at all. The tide turned early, in Coral Gables, when Bush went belly up less than halfway through his first bout with Kerry, who hammered poor George into jelly. It was pitiful. . . . I almost felt sorry for him, until I heard someone call him “Mister President,” and then I felt ashamed.

and:

Richard Nixon looks like a flaming liberal today, compared to a golem like George Bush. Indeed. Where is Richard Nixon now that we finally need him?

If Nixon were running for president today, he would be seen as a “liberal” candidate, and he would probably win. He was a crook and a bungler, but what the hell? Nixon was a barrel of laughs compared to this gang of thugs from the Halliburton petroleum organization who are running the White House today — and who will be running it this time next year, if we (the once-proud, once-loved and widely respected “American people”) don’t rise up like wounded warriors and whack those lying petroleum pimps out of the White House on November 2nd.

Nixon hated running for president during football season, but he did it anyway. Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for — but if he were running for president this year against the evil Bush-Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him.

That’s Hunter S Thompson saying that.

Wow.

As a further example of the accelerated time in which we live, it turns out that HST’s latest book is out: Hey Rube : Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness: Modern History from the Sports Desk

Via BoingBoing.