Conservatives live in their own fantasy world, where we're fighting in Iraq so Frodo can toss a ring into Mount Doom and we will be greeted as liberators. Sending ill-equipped soldiers into battle for a war built on lies is just politics as usual, a cudgel to swing at liberals and Democrats who want to deal with real problems and not just create sound bites. Republicans will happily sacrifice our young men and women for votes. It's worked so far.

The far right has spent the last forty years hammering away at a non-exitstent Culture War... and now they find themselves on the wrong side. Sad but true: It takes a sleazy sex scandal to puncture the self-righteous pomposity of people who deny global warming and think Bush actually respects Jesus as a political mentor.

Congratulations, Ruben, for placing two of their major crimes in perspective. Let's hope they can see themselves in this cartoon; I'm not holding my breath. I am, however, laughing painfully at this cartoon. Thanks. You're one of the reasons I subscribe to salon.com.

Follow the money. The sleazy trail of corruption has infected Congress. The money trail didn't end with the Abramoff scandals. The Republican's judiciary selection has long been one of ideology over competence; now we see it's also part of an monied Old Boy Network. This latest investigation demonstrates the lack of moral compass of the conservative movement in this country. Not too long ago, when the Democrats were in control, the appearance of impropriety was sufficient to shame the process. Now, impropriety itself is being defended by the right-wing. The moral relativists in this lettercolumn are saying that a few thousand bucks is chicken feed. In other words, not only are judicial candidates slipping money to the people who are going to vote for them, it's doubly shameful that Republicans can be bought for so little. As the joke goes, "We know what you are, we're just haggling over the amount."

David Kuo is on to something, though he makes the mistake of assuming that the very religious are either going to stick with Republicans or do nothing. While modern political definitions don't map well to religious thought from thousands of years ago, Jesus is, perhaps, the most liberal religious figure of any major religion. Feeding the poor, taking care of the sick, forgiving enemies, money isn't as important as doing the right thing, etc etc. But somehow, all that got usurped into tax cuts for the rich, cuts in Social Security, death penalty, wars and lying for political gain. One of the lessons of 9/11 is that the conviction of misplaced faith is as strong or stronger than the conviction of faith. Too many on the far right don't live in the world G_d created, instead cowering in their own world of misplaced faith to justify rejecting evolution, denying global warming or killing doctors. There is room for faith in the hearts of people in political office, but merely mouthing the words isn't good enough. The left needs to make peace with the peacemakers. We need a New Enlightenment, where the moral lessons taught by spiritual leaders helps guide political decisions today. Bush fooled a lot of people, including David Kuo at first. Now it's up to the left to show how it's really done.

A long-held political truism, which Kristol references:

A conservative is a liberal who has been mugged.

A liberal is a conservative who has been arrested.

That is, experiencing random violence moves people to assert authority by force; seeing the abuse of power moves people to demand more oversight to authority.

After the orderliness of the Cold War with the Soviet Union -- a fight between nations with identifiable capitols and soldiers -- we slipped into (or back into) the messy and sometimes random violence of religious and sectarian warfare. The Middle East is more important than Northern Ireland or Sudan because of oil. It's true but simplistic to say we went into Iraq because of oil; oil makes the region of great interest to the US but we didn't want to take over, we wanted to ensure a continuous supply on our terms.

The neocons, piggy-backing on the anal retentive fervor of the Cold Warriors, rattled enough sabers until we decided to charge. It didn't work. The response to a mugging isn't a lynch mob, however satisfying that may be at first.

Abu Ghraib was an abuse of power, and the recently passed bills allowing torture and killing habeas corpus have shown many conservatives even more dread examples. The GOP played Bad Cop and the Democrats played Good Cop, and the American electorate chose sides. The Democrats have a chance to hold the bad cops accountable while they're on patrol. I wish them luck: Liberals are the Thin Blue Line holding barbarians back from ruining America.

I produce Shockwave Radio Theater here in Minneapolis, and I interviewed Keith Ellison and, on a different show, his challenger Alan Fine. I'm not a confrontational interviewer, and I didn't leap on either of them, but I did ask some tough questions. We had a great conversation. Based largely on their answers to me AND Keith's terrific voting record in the MN legislature, I voted for Ellison, proudly. You can hear my interview with Keith Ellison at http://www.archive.org/details/SRT20060701 .