First and foremost: There's no doubt that the five Republican justices in Bush v. Gore (excepting Souter) ruled in a nakedly partisan manner that contradicted their previous judicial philosophies regarding states' rights and equal protection. Those justices remaining on the court should be impeached for gross malfeasance.

Second: A statewide recount of the undervotes according to the Florida state law mandating the determination of the intent of the voter would have resulted in Gore winning Florida and the presidency.

Third: When the margin of victory falls within the margin of error we can expect this type of chaos. It is inexcusable that in this day and age that the margin of error should not be zero, for all practical purposes.

Fourth: If an election can be stolen, it will be stolen. All votes should be on tangible, voter-verifiable ballots and available for auditing by the press and interested parties.

Since the Supreme Court ruled that "money equals free speech," the only fix for our corrupt system of legalized bribery is a Constitutional Amendment mandating government financing of federal elections.

If enacted, this Amendment would get our politicians out of the fundraising business and make America a truly representative democracy again.

Perhaps, Glenn, your hard work and razor-sharp analysis is actually having an impact and is forcing these hacks into introspective self-examination of how their actions affect our country and world.

We can hope anyway.

The McClellan expose reveals the same shocking truth that previous Bush insiders (DiIulio, O'Neil, Tenet, Clark, etc.) have told:

There is no policy apparatus in the Bush regime. All effort is directed towards political activity. In essence, the United States of America has existed without a government for the entire tenure of the Bush "presidency."

In the case of the Bush regime, "political activity" is synonymous with manufacturing lies. One should need no further explanation of why things have become so hopelessly screwed up, or why the Bush regime succeeds in making Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon models of propriety by comparison. At least they were trying to govern.

Bush and his courtiers are only concerned with giving the appearance of governance while they loot the treasury.

Meanwhile, our so-called "liberal media" has agreed to play dumb and look the other way during the course of this pillaging -- as noted with apparent disgust by Mr. McClellan.

Our corporate media continues to "play dumb." As an institution, it is still abdicating its vital function in a democracy: keeping citizens informed.

By acting as stenographers and refusing to remember the Bush regime's previous lies, the corporate media is not only complicit in the Iraq disaster, it is foolishly assisting in an impending catastrophe in Iran.

Based on their pathetic defense of their coverage of the Iraq war, it's apparent that they have learned nothing.

Allen's response illustrates the real Bush Derangement Syndrome (not the imaginary projected type cited by the sufferers of the syndrome).

Dharma Initiative? They obviously had loads of cash.

Maybe someday Phil Gramm will be compelled to explain how he entered Congress as a poor college professor, yet retired from Congress as a multi-millionaire.

Gramm's egregious corruption makes him a living, breathing argument for a Constitutional Amendment mandating government financing of federal election campaigns.

That McCain would willingly associate with such sleaze speaks volumes about his commitment to "reform."

Fully integrated individuals will feel guilt and remorse for the harm they have done to others -- which is probably McClellan's motivation for coming clean.

McClellan, who was never an artful liar, should consider himself lucky. The short tenure within the toxic environment of the Bush regime appears to be killing his successor, Tony Snow.

However, opportunistic sociopaths like Ari Fleischer and Dana Perino seem to be unaffected by lying for a living -- at least to date.

If there's a single thread running through the ongoing scandal of our press' abdication of its role as watchdog, it's the misplaced rejection of the national interest in favor of a misperceived economic self-interest.

At the reporter lever, they were afraid to challenge the powerful because they thought they would lose "access" to the lying, disinforming sources they thought were advancing their careers. At the editorial level, they were similarly afraid of losing "access," as well as facing heat from advertisers and competitors for lack of "patriotism."

We can now see where these collective acts of economic self-interest and cowardice have brought us. To paraphrase Glenn:

How would real patriots have acted?

Let's get this straight: Conservatives advocate a federal government so weak it can't assess taxes (Norquist), and a president so strong he can literally order your child's testicles crushed to force your compliance (Yoo).

That type of incoherence is the antithesis of orderly, legal governance -- which explains why the United States is a dictatorship in all but name today.

McCain needs to have his nose rubbed in this fact at every opportunity and forced to defend how just 19 kooks with boxcutters and an audacious plan got us into this disgraceful state.

Ask the McCain Magic 8 Ball a question. Don't like the answer? Ask again, give the McCain Magic 8 Ball a shake, and get a different answer. Repeat until a satisfactory answer is given.

It's the utter incoherence of the Bush regime's Iraq "policy" that is responsible for the chaos described in the article.

Decapitate the Sunni government, install a Shiite government, then begin arming Sunni militias (and pay them to stop shooting at us) that will immediately take up armed resistance against the Shiite government the moment American troops withdraw.

And to rationalize the easily predicted failure to establish a harmonious Jeffersonian democracy in Iraq? Blame Iran.

Democrats must act NOW to prevent the lunatics in the Bush regime from further compounding the disaster they have created by attacking Iran.