I was watching "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" this morning as National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley tried to make a case for America's right to torture, and I was struck -- or, more precisely, made increasingly uncomfortable -- by how emphatic -- or, more precisely, shrill and grating -- he became answering George's questions.

His manner was especially jarring contrasted to that of John McCain, who had preceded Hadley on the show and calmly constructed a rational argument against undercutting our moral standing in the world.

The contrast brought to mind first the Bush 2000 campaign's smear of McCain as rash and hot-tempered (when they weren't smearing him as the father of an illegitimate interracial daughter) and, second, Bush's own belligerence in Friday's Rose Garden press conference.

It's easy to tell when Bush and his stooges get agitated. They lean forward, hoping to achieve some kind of physical dominance. Their speech becomes halting, the volume and pitch of their voices rising erratically. Their gestures become frenetic -- especially with Bush, who, raised by a man of reasonable integrity but lacking the intelligence to lie as coolly as Dick Cheney, lurches like an epileptic marionette, a twisted smirk plastered on his face.

It's the stress that even Republicans feel when lying -- as easy to see as the gyrations of a polygraph needle registering a child molester's desperate denials. And it's fair warning that a new front is opening in the war on democracy.

But then, Bush and his conspirators have reason for their voices to quake. A new poll shows that 35% of Americans say they'll be voting against Bush in the upcoming midterms. That compares to 18% who said they voted against Clinton in '94, when Democrats lost control of Congress.

If I were a Republican, with the administration's spokesmen revealed as loathsome liars, my president flailing and frothing helplessly in the face of principled resistance, and my party's fearmongering exposed as the same tactic that brought the Nazis to power, I'd be talking funny too.