"If American conservatism will not take its stand in defense of these things, what will it take a stand for?

The answer, sadly, is nothing -- or rather, nothing except power. But power devoid of moral content is precisely what genuine conservatism should reject."

I think this is absolutely true, but part of the problem is the evaporation of the opposition party. Let's face it-- the democrats, at least the leadership, including the top-tier presidential hopefuls who hem and haw about whether they can foresee leaving Iraq-- can be described in pretty much the same way: just as unwilling to defend the constitution, just as cravenly hungry for power.

"You say the rich will leave the country rather than face a marginal tax of 50 percent? Let them, and take away their citizenship."

Yeah! (As I recall we had a 50 percent top marginal tax rate throughout most of the 60s and 70s, and apart from the Vietnam debacle we paid our way and still had a manufacturing base. What do we have now?)

Reich stands taller than any other ex-Clinton official in my book. Thank you Rober Reich, and thank you Salon for publishing this.

and frankly the Honda Fit is more attractive than the oddball Prius, in my eyes.

ultimately, the mechanic who insists we need proper electrics has it right-- assuming the electricity is generated cleanly.

several commenters suggest that the fact that we no longer have a draft is why people have not been protesting the way the did in the 60s, and I imagine this is at least partly true.

(conversely, whenever I see a yellow ribbon on the back of a late-model SUV that probably cost at least 40 grand I wonder if the support is more about guilt than conviction, insofar as comfy suburbanites aren't the ones sending their sons and daughters off to this war.)

But I don't know how you can actually measure the effectiveness of various forms of protest, especially since today's news media seems determined to make most protest invisible-- which of course may be part of the reason we think there's less protesting going on.

what Hillary Clinton said in 2006 is consistent with what Bill Clinton said about a "specific, time-limited" exception", on Bill didn't later take his statement back. Neither are stupid politicians, and the discrepancy has to be deliberate.

Whether you call it triangulating or gestalt politicking, the point is the discrepancy allows voters who favor a democrat who favors torture to feel comfortable "knowing" that she doesn't really mean it when she takes it back if the spouse hasn't retracted his statement, while democrats who want to delude themselves that she's against torture can mentally parse her statement(s) the way they want. Tim Russert may have thought he was playing "gotcha" with her during that debate when he brought this up, but he was helping her out..

It's a veritable buffet of meanings, and don't forget to believe what you want about war with Iran!

This is a great essay, but you give Obama and Hagel too much credit. They're dancing around saying what needs to be said, possibly out of fear: as long as they don't call the administration on the lies they're telling about the supposedly imminent threat posed by Iran, they might as well be saying,

"we agree that Iran is an immediate threat, but you're going about this the wrong way."

Because that's what people will hear(and that's why Obama has essentially sunk his 2008 aspirations.*).

*Obama could call Bush a liar. Not only a liar, but a damn liar. And if Oprah or John Boehner or Nancy Pelosi told him he was being intemperate he could tell them to shove it. He'd go up 15 fucking points in 72 hours.

Because if Bush has succeeded in making people believe in the immediate threat, and it appears he has, and no one calls him on this directly, Obama and Hegel might as well be saying they voted "against it before they voted for it."

All they're doing is offering carefully calculated objections designed to encourage the insipidly wonkish to give them credit for opposing Bush, while ensuring that the broader American public doesn't actually notice any substantial objection or criticism to the run-up to another war.

you know, you could send you boss a "fluffy" email in the same style about how fluffy emails often contain malicious content like trojans. you could probably cite some cnet central or wired news article.

also, offer your boss a rolex, real cheap. one that explodes.

if she asks you, "why did you send me those alarming emails?"

tell her you were under the impression she liked them. then warn her that you're about to explode, and run away.

Either these ideas are good-- or they're not. Anyway,that's all I got.

(incidentally, why do so many Cary L.W.'s avoid gender references in their letters to Cary? Do you, Cary, subconsciously avoid picking letters from persons who make specific gender references? Do you have some nifty software that gender neutralizes the letters before they appear in your column? Is it true that software that neutralizes gender in internet text is prone to occasionally explode?)

Oh, please.