Sid Blumenthal answered my question about the USA's official non response to the bloodletting in Lebanon. It seems unconscionable to allow this rabid warmongering to go on, and now I know why Bush and Co. would do it. It's a case of "let's you and him fight". And, assuming Israel prevails (a tortured bit of optimism), it would solve our Iran problem, and maybe our Iraq problem. A "new Middle East" would look like this: Israel destroying its enemies entirely. Sounds great. We should let 'em do that and help them if we can. This is a scenario only a neoconservative would love. We don't have to be "interventionist". Our scary new best friends can do it for us and we don't have to waste time with such trifles as "diplomacy." As I said, only a neoconservative would love this scenario. Or a Klingon. You can almost hear them salivating with bloodlust and saying "It will be glorious!" as they board their Birds of Prey.

My God. Everytime I think this administration has sunk to its lowest depths, it shows me that for these people, there is no floor. I have an awful feeling about this. It's already ugly, and unless cooler heads prevail fast, it's going to get a whole lot worse. Worse yet for George Bush who, it seems to me, is quickly running out of the rope he needs to entirely hang his presidency.

I take back what I said about the Klingons. At least they have the balls to actually fight a war, unlike these petty thugs who would raher watch people die and two nations destroy each other to cover up their own colossal failure. The Kilingons would find no "honor" in this. Hopefully I'm making sense here. It's awfully hard to get inside the minds of madmen. You risk going a little crazy yourself.

Ah yes, more unintelligible, mindless gibberings from the, ahem, Commander-In-Chief. What the bloody hell kind of interpreter do you need for this sorry excuse for English? Hard to imagine how these foreign dignitaries don't laugh loud and long listening to this guy. Or how they don't come away with the same thought I had when I read the transcript: "Huh? Sounded like English...but what the HELL was he saying?"

Freedom and Democracy *&HH&**%$ Style of Governing %&(*^#@()%$ War of ideology%&((&&%!@# we will not quit$%&^**(&!

STOP THIS SHIT!

I usually come down on the side of optimism in these matters but I find it hard to do so this time. This is quite possibly the most terrifying piece of legislation to come out of this Congress in some while. And that's saying something. The bill seems to allow the president to assume all of us could be potential terrorists. Obviously the courts have weighed in on this matter and said that this is not in line with the Constitution. But this lapdog Congress, led by Republicans who could care less about oversight are willing to give the president unchecked power at the expense of their and our freedom. I'm so sick and tired of this "divine right of kings to rule" mentality. If this bill becomes law then we as a nation have no protection under the law from the madness of this administration, and we will truly be a dictatorship. I pray (yes, liberal heathen that I am) that this bill gets shot down out of the gate, and Arlen Specter is shown for the traitor that he is. He's no civil libertarian. He's no "moderate" Republican. I don't think the term even applies anymore. He's just another wacko conservative looking to cement his position. God help us all. What the hell was PA thinking when they elected this simpering butt boy for the White House?

Which in fact means exactly more of the kind of mean-spirited, unprincipled, undemocratic government we've seen in recent years. I typically think of myself as center-left on most issues, but I'm figuring out that center-left, ala the Democratic Leadership Council which gave us Bill Clinton, is not enough in these times. In fact, labeling the issues of a "unitary executive" who can set himself above the law, the invasion of a sovereign nation without evidence of an actual threat, allowing the rich to grow richer at the expense of the rest of us, and this basic contempt for the Constitution "conservative" or "liberal" misses the point by a wide margin. These are basic questions of our identity as Americans. Read this way, there's not a lot of room for compromise with the radicals (don't let's call them "conservatives") who want to return this country to Colonial times. Read this way, the vote to confirm Sam Alito to the Supreme Court, for example, is unconscionable. As are the votes to side with the Republicans on nearly any number of issues. Joe Leiberman, and I'm speaking as someone who has only watched him on the national stage, is exactly the kind of senator who compromises when he should be fighting. When it comes to these fundamental questions, we stand to lose a lot if we get it wrong. And we have gotten it wrong already.

So it really comes down to this: is the USA really about freedom, equality under the law and in the marketplace, justice, truth, and opportunity? Do we really believe this stuff? Does Joe Lieberman really believe this stuff? And if he does, how in the Sam Hill can he continue to think and vote like a conservative? How on earth do you conflate kissing George Bush with "bipartisanship"? So far as I can tell, the reason Connecticut seems poised to send Lieberman home from the Senate is because they can't get their minds around that incongruity any more than I can.