As a "true believer," you'd think Boylan would be more useful in water-boarding or other non-tortures (America doesn't torture!) rather than in propaganda, where he's obviously way out of his depth.

As Rice's benediction showed, there's no actual government successes to speak of, just political eye wash. That's what the Busheviks do.

They're incapable of actual governance, but they're brilliant at PR spin and political skullduggery. Neither bodes well for the future.

Bush and the rest of the GOP sociopaths just show up in suits, going though the motions, and the corporate media maintains the fiction that they're actually governing despite the obvious lies and incoherent policy pronouncements.

How can Rockefeller (or anybody) base policy on Bush regime "assurances," since literally everything Bush apparatchiks say proves to be false?

"Fool me once," and all that. After so many instances of Bush duplicity and mendacity, any politician's (or journalist's) willingness to uncritically accept any statement of fact by the Bush regime can only indicate gross naiveté or willful complicity.

There has never been -- not once -- an unambiguously true statement released by any official spokesman acting in any official capacity on behalf of the Bush regime.

This includes Col. Boylan.

If the facts aren't working for you, make shit up.

We saw this with Vietnam, the Swift Boaters, the Jersey Girls, that 12-year-old. Hannity, Limbaugh, and so on.

Debate is much more difficult when only one side feels the need to adhere to objective reality.

Any defense of the policy will be incoherent. Boylan's screed is one example. Dana Perino's daily exercizes in excuses, concealment and denial are another.

After all, think how difficult it is to defend the policy where the US is literally switching sides in the Iraq conflict -- now arming and supporting the Sunnis against the Shiite government we created.

This level of incompetence would be comical if not so lethal.

And the sad part is, if we do nothing, the young people of Iran will ultimately throw off their theocratic rulers.

But if we perpetrate aggressive military action against Iran we will only succeed in strengthening the rule of the ayatollahs.

America is "governed" by morons.

Cutting taxes to raise revenues, Reagan scaring the Iranians into releasing the hostages, Reagan winning the Cold War -- these are some of the fictions that today's "Conservatives" hold dear.

It is these types of delusions that made Bush the Lesser president, and created the disaster we now find ourselves in.

What type of myths did the Romans believe about themselves as they watched, dumbfounded, as barbarians sacked their city?

Floyd gets it. GG gets it. Most of the readers of this blog gets it: Our government is foolishly hell-bent on waging a disastrous bombing campaign (at a minimum) on Iran.

They apparently haven't given any thought at all as to what happens five years later when the Iranians have justifiably redoubled their nuclear efforts. Payback will be a bitch.

So where the hell is the Democratic opposition? Are they stupid, blackmailed, bought-off or just too disinterested to care?

The level of "leadership" demonstrated to date by Reid and Pelosi is nothing short of pathetic. Will any of the conscious and principled Democrats do what is necessary?

Duncan Hunter. Anybody every see both of them in the same room at the same time?

And ultimately the owners. It's their responsibility for putting these half-wits into print/on-the-air.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, only a Constitutional Amendment to mandate public financing of campaigns will ever begin to fix the sleazy, corrupt status quo as illustrated by GG regarding Rockefeller and the telecom's campaign contributions.

Currently, the raising of cash for the next campaign is our Congress' #1 priority. This forces gross ethical compromises and leaves little time for actual governance.

The real target of these unconstitutional, anti-democratic, and authoritarian measures isn't Al Qaeda.

It's us.

Our government (both parties) no longer pays attention to our feeble bleets of protest. It's apparent that only more direct action will have an impact at this point.

The question of "Why?" is crucial.

As has been pointed out here, for many RWAs it's simply to confront and defeat liberalism. Yahoo! Our team versus their team. Mindless, but there it is.

But for the power players, the goal seems to be nothing less than the establishment of a feudal system. They look at Mexico's low-tax, low-service model as an ideal, with plenty of urban peasants to exploit. All of the economic trends since Ronald Reagan are heading in that direction -- the middle class is shrinking.

The religious right has no problem with this agenda, since they view the wealthy as especially "blessed" and favored by the Lord. The plutocrats are willing to throw a few symbolic bones to the theocratic right -- as long as those tax rates keep being cut.

And there's nothing like wars to keep the masses in a state of patriotic fervor while their pockets are being picked.

These bastards are evil. Not stupid, not mistaken -- evil.

As far as I know, that question hasn't even been seriously asked by Congress -- much less answered.

There is no controversy about foreign-to-foreign evesdropping. It's the American-to-American surveillance that should be of serious concern.

Only our hyper-credulous congressional Democrats and deliberately naive M$M continue to give the Bush regime the benefit of the doubt at this late date.

..Is fear of death. Come up with a comfortable secular fairy tale about "what comes after" and all the churches will go out of business.

Gonzales tried to make the case that habeas corpus wasn't a "right," according to the Constitution, but that it couldn't be withheld from defendants, or some other such legally contorted gobbelygook.

As always, great essay!

Of course you understand that mereley quoting O'Reilly's own rabid words is defined as a "smear" in the right-wing fantasy land known as the Fox News Channel.