The Fox News "parody" show The 1/2 Hour Comedy show running the attack commericials accusing the ACLU of making America "safe" for the hate speech of the KKK?

Funny how a Fox News conservative can see there's something wrong with Muslims using hate speech laws to persecute people but they can't see what's wrong with attacking the ACLU for defending free speech.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07133/785076-148.stm

We all struggle mightily to prove to ourselves and others that whatever we do is the right thing to have done, even -- or most especially -- when it is not.

This team of social psychologists tackles "the inner workings of self-justification," the mental gymnastics that allow us to bemoan the mote in our brother's eye while remaining blissfully unaware of the beam in our own.

Their prose is lively, their research is admirable, and their examples of our arrogant follies are entertaining and instructive.

Two concepts are central to their study:

Cognitive dissonance: "The hard-wired psychological mechanism that creates self-justification and protects our certainties, self-esteem and tribal affiliations."

Pyramid of choice: When we first deal with a mistake, we are at the top of the pyramid. As we create ever more elaborate fictions that absolve us and restore our sense of self-worth and thereby remove the dissonance, we descend step by step to the base.

The authors follow the trail of self-justification through the areas of family, memory, therapy, law, prejudice and conflict, but some of the juiciest examples come from politics. Think most recently of U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, echoing Ronald Reagan when he used the very words of this book's title -- "mistakes were made." (Politicians are especially fond of the passive voice.)

What's going on is not lying, exactly, except insofar as it is lying to oneself. As Aldous Huxley said, "There is probably no such thing as a conscious hypocrite."

"The abuse of buying and selling votes crept in and money began to play an important part in determining elections. Later on, however, this process of corruption spread to the law courts and to the army; and, finally, even when the sword became enslaved by the power of gold, the republic was subject to the rule of emperors." - Plutarch (46 - 120 CE)

Is that we have a political atmosphere in which presidential candidates are campaigning on being a particular religion.

I just read the Atrios link.

I agree that it's wrong to criticize Huckabee but not Obama, but disagree that it's not that big a deal to make this kind of appeal.

This sort of behavior helps to cede the territory to Republicans by legitizing being a member of a religion to get elected. It's creating a de facto religious test, making Article 6 effectively null with rare exceptions.

One might argue this sort of campaigning is a necessary evil, and might even be right, but I tend to be sort of dogmatic about his subject. Drew Westen wrote at length in The Political Brain about how Democrats have been ceding the neural networks on issues like this to Republicans, and how in the long run it plays into their hands, so they would be better off challenging the narrative and creating new networks ... basically, he's saying to reframe the issue.

I'd rather see Obama (or any candidate) challenge the silent bigotry against non-Christians rather than work within the existing frame.

http://dailydoubt.blogspot.com/2008/01/obama-says-vote-for-me-im-christian.html

Check the link in the update.

'Listening to this "debate" is enough to make one become a revolutionary.'

I was going to say something to that effect. It's maddening really. We're seeing an admitted (in a round about way) bipartisan effort to perpetuate a constitutional crisis.

You want to roll over and give into every unConstitutional banana republic action of the Bush administration. Fine. But don't god damn tell me we're facing a constitutional crisis and then tell me you're going to defy you base, your civic duty, and your Constitution to promote a "bipartisan spirit" of lawbreaking.

It's like something out of a friggin' Orwell novel. "Partisan" now means that if you are opposed to someone engaging in partisan illegal, immoral, indefensible activity you're the partisan.

I'd rather be partisan for right principles than whatever the hell it is these spineless Democrats are partisan for. They aren't partisan for democracy. Maybe they should change the party name to something more fitting. Roll-overcrats, maybe?

Chris Mooney at Scienceblogs has been trying to organize a 2008 presidential debate on science and technology, an idea that was inspired in part by the damage this administration has politicized science to the detriment of the country.

http://www.sciencedebate2008.com/www/index.php?id=2

We've seen that the press is not going to raise issues pertaining to the functioning of democracy in the debates.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801240006?f=h_latest

http://mediamatters.org/items/200711170002?f=h_top

Through 17 debates this year, roughly 1,500 questions have been asked of the two parties' presidential candidates. But only a small handful of questions have touched on the candidates' views on executive power, the Constitution, torture, wiretapping, or other civil liberties concerns.

Is it too late to come up with something similar to the ScienceDebate08? Can we come up with a Constitution debate08? Is such a thing possible? It's certainly necessary.

Also, I think it should be suggested/urged to Edwards (and the others to whatever effect it might have) to campaign on the promise of addressing our broken gov't. To promise to restore and repair the damage that has been done to the Constitution. Towards this end, perhaps also promising to appoint the VP head of a task force to come up with ways to bring back Constitutional gov't. Clinton did something similar with Gore (i.e. putting him in charge of a task force to follow up on a campaign promise) and the results were successful reform.