If you like the "Museum of Stupidity," you'll love the Christian Reconstructionist / Dominionist movement.

They may be insane, but they are highly motivated and organized, lavishly funded, smart enough to know their agenda (institution of theocratic "biblical law" including death by stoning for fornication, advocacy of slavery, etc.) is repellent enough that they must act covertly.

They are also so influential that Republican presidential candidates must seek the endorsement of the Dominionist front group, the Council for National Policy.

The Dominionists are trying to do to politics what the Creationists are doing to science.

Actor-presidents are wonderful as long as they've got great writers. But without a script, we get idiotic pap like "There you go again" -- which is still inexplicably praised by the media whores as some type of Cicero-esque oratorical brilliance.

Fred Thompson? Wow, he was great in "Baby's Day Out."

I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked, that a candidate for president could be described as ambitious! The horror!

As for the Gerth book, Conason (with Gene Lyons) spelled out the excruciating details of Gerth's and the NY Times' shameful campaign of character assassination against the Clintons in their excellent "The Hunting of the President."

I think it's safe to assume that in the last remaining minutes before the next president is sworn in (assuming Cheney will voluntarily relinquish power), blanket pardons for *everyone* in the criminal enterprise known as the Bush administration will be issued.

Once the curtain of secrecy is lifted and the light shines in and all the bugs and creepy crawlies scatter, I think even the dwindling remnants of the Bush "base" will be shocked.

The dimwits in charge of our "War on Terror" seem oblivious to the fact that the world does not present a simple static reality that they can easily mold to their ends with the use of force.

Instead, for every brutal American action, there is an *inequal* and opposite reaction, as these dunderheads should have realized by now in Iraq.

Drag an innocent Iraqi off the street and subject him to "enhanced interrogation techniques," and you've created a highly motivated enemy of him, his family, and friends for life. Even innocent Gitmo detainees who were mistakenly swept-up are undoubtedly zealous anti-American jihadists now. Who could blame them?

After seeing the Republican presidential candidates advocating a preemptive nuclear strike on Iran, one has to wonder if the GOP is now a party of idiots and maniacs. AFter all, if we were to nuke Iran, is there any doubt that 5-10 years from now, when their reconstituted nuclear program successfully creates "the bomb," they would retaliate by nuking a US city (or two or three)? Or will we have to nuke them every five years or so?

The neocons driving US national-security policy (and with the exception of Ron Paul, all of the Republican candidates for president) seem to be too dumb to realize that the promiscuous use of force -- aside from being morally wrong -- causes reactions that are counter to long-term American national security interests.

>Typical: a right-wing extremeist makes a point the moderate/liberal finds >agreeable, and the stampede is on to adopt the whole package.

Ron Paul may be a kook on other issues (I certainly am not "crossing over" to vote for him), but at least he understands the first principle of foreign policy:

"First, do no harm."

Thanks for the Giuliani quote, Glenn! Rudy has been pandering shamelessly on the Libby issue about how "the Plame case lacked an underlieing crime" on Libby's behalf, and therefore, his punishment was soooo unjust.

It would be interesting to see just how many perjury and obstruction cases Giuliani prosecuted when he was a US Attorney. There may be some potential for petard-hoisting there.

Based on Klein's comments, I think it's safe to assume that if Watergate were to happen today, it would be a one-day story -- ending with the media's credulous echoing of the administration's denial of any wrongdoing.

Pathetic...

>By the way Libby wasn't found guilty of outing Plame, he was convicted of having >the wrong recollection of where he heard about her.

In the reality-based community, it's known as perjury and obstruction of justice.

BTW Shooter, check out today's "This Modern World" for further clarification.

As always, great post! This is an issue that true patriots should be up in arms about.

With the contempt Bush has repeatedly demonstrated for constitutional law, the omnipotent powers he has repeatedly claimed for himself, and the thoughtless destruction he has casually unleashed in Iraq, one has to consider the possibility that "The Decider" may presume that "his government" is just too indispensible to be discharged in 2009.

This isn't hypebole. These are perilous times for our constitutional democracy.

"The Incredible Shrinking Attorney General"

Matthews is rather fickle in his hero-worship. First there was Bush in his staged flight-suit spectacle. Then there was America's Mayor. Now it's Mr. Authenticity.

Is Matthews really so stupid as to be so easily swayed by such obvious PR manipulations? Apparently so.

It may be difficult for the Gen-Y and Xers to understand the historical significance of the Marvel Universe in general, and the Fantastic Four in particular. But for this Baby Boomer -- back in the day before video games, VCRs and 300 channel cable TV -- comic books were THE escapist entertainment.

When Marvel comics hit the stands it was nothing short of revolutionary (with their cocky NYC attitude literally exploding from the page courtesy of Jack Kirby's dynamic art and Stan Lee's brilliant writing) compared to the hackneyed, whitebread comics that came before.

I can still remember discovering my first Marvel comic, the Fantastic Four's "The Battle of the Baxter Building." Oh the joy! Comics would never be the same, and thanks to Stan Lee, neither would I.

I thought the first FF was a worthwhile (yes, worth the wait of 40 years or so) adaptation and I'm looking forward to "The Silver Surfer."

It's no longer possible to distinguish between the rantings of today's RWAs and satire.