Redact Bush!

Ted Rall is right: none of the major presidential candidates have promised to do what it would take to restore democracy.

What would it take? According to Rall:

--Close Gitmo and the CIA torture chambers

--Get out of Afghanistan and Iraq

--Revoke the protofascist USA-Patriot and Military Commissions Acts

--Obey the Geneva Conventions and turn over Bush, his torturers, his Congressional allies and his top civilian and military officials to an international war crimes tribunal for their role in the murders of more than one million Afghans and Iraqis

"The politicians are too timid to do what's right," Rall says. "But we can bully them into it. Let's begin America's long slog toward moral and political redemption by demanding that our next president's first act be to declare the Bush Administration null and void. Every law and act carried out between 12 noon on January 20, 2001 and January 20, 2009 should just...go...poof."

How do we do that?

Rall suggests that you write an actual letter (not an e-mail) to your favorite presidential candidate, and declare that you are a single-issue voter. Promise that, if your candidate agrees to sign the following Pledge, he/she has your vote; otherwise, you will stay home or vote for someone else.

Pledge for American Renewal
"I, ______________, hereby solemnly pledge that my first act upon assuming the office of President shall be to sign an American Renewal Act of 2009, which shall declare all laws, regulations, executive orders, treaties and actions undertaken by the federal government during the illegitimate and unlawful administration of George W. Bush to be null, void and without effect."

"Demand that the major presidential candidates sign the Pledge for American Renewal," Rall says. "We know the woman and half-dozen men who are leading in the polls want to rule us. But will they lead?"