As many have observed, the neo-cons who took over the Republican Party violated its traditional core principles and alienated principled conservatives with their Stalinist assault on the Constitution. In addition, the disastrous consequences of Bush's invasion of Iraq and bungling of the economy have left the Republican brand in ruins, headed for heavy losses in the next election.

But just as the neo-cons have no respect for conservative principles, they have no true loyalty for the Republican Party either. They are nothing but opportunistic parasites and the Republican Party has simply served as their host while they exploited it to gain enough power to loot the Federal Treasury.

The upcoming Republican electoral losses will not mark the end of the neo-con cabal, only its mutation into a neo-liberal cohort of parasites infecting the next juicy host: the Democratic Party. Ex-Republican operatives will blandly renounce their former association with the departed Bush regime as they affirm their commitment to work in "bi-partisan" cooperation to repair its excesses. These aren't candidates for office I'm talking about, but the advisers and appointees who work the system between elections.

The Democratic Party has been infiltrated for years with Blue Dog Republicrats whose primary allegiances are to their corporate and/or military-industrial patrons. The Democratic Party's indulgence in their corruption lowers the bar of integrity to a depth that ex-Republican operatives can readily fake. Many Democrats would in fact welcome collegues from the ravaged Republican carcass as seasoned political professionals.

I think the primary tactical justification for ousting Blue Dogs is to make the Democratic Party a cold and unfriendly environment for ex-Republicans. If they are allowed to establish comfortable niches within its ranks, they will swarm and devour it as they did the Republican Party. In order to maintain any hope of the Democrats restoring Constitutional rule of law, it will be necessary to disinfect them on a regular basis.

I just asked the following question to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, on a FireDogLake live Q&A hosted by Digby:

"Senator, are you planning to hold hearings on the illegality of the Pentagon’s propaganda training program of retired military officers that was recently exposed by the New York Times and Glenn Greenwald?"

Senator Reid's reply:

"The answer is yes. I have personally spoken to Chairman Levin and he is tremendously concerned as I. And we are proceeding accordingly."

The Swift Boat defamation of character ploy was easy to understand. The thugs were smearing Kerry with bullshit, but it was about something he had actually done, not some speech he once listened to someone else make.

Maybe I'm missing a nuance of some sound byte, but it seems like there's absolutely zero substance at the core of this flap over Wright. I'm seriously at a loss to even identify what the punkits think is so "incendiary" about Wright's opinions. Has the corporate media simply decided to dispense with pretending to "strongly disagree with what you have to say, but defend to the death your right to say it"? That's my working theory at least.

Or maybe they're so brainwashed they've forgotten what everyone used to call this kind of racket: red-baiting guilt by association. When someone's record was as clean as Obama's, and they couldn't pin anything on him directly, old-school fascists would try to claim he was a "fellow traveller" who associated with "known Communists". Any excuse to pummel him with lying accusations and intimidate him into jumping through their hoops.

Jeremiah Wright is now infamous for being belligerent, I get that. Like Paris Hilton was famous for being a celebrity. Funny thing how cute white women are so often cast in the role of celebrity, while big black men can pretty much count on getting the role of boogieman.

I really liked the way Glenn characterized Ken Pollack as "Saban's Ken Pollack". Giving full attribution to Pollack's owner is an excellent way to highlight the originating source of the propaganda. It'd be great to see all the corporate media gasbags routinely identified by their true owners and managers, rather than by brand-name, such as "MSNBC's Chris Matthews".

There's balancing view to bethincary's indictment of the overwhelmingly male origin of the sociopathic violence of patriarchal culture. While it's an indisputable fact that women rarely choose to directly compete with men in sheer greed, exploitation, and intimidation, there is a major role that women play in perpetuating the dominance of authoritarian male egos.

Women are notorious enablers of the worst traits of men, providing endless compliance and willing passive support to virtually every offense that men commit. Much like the complicit relationship of spineless Congressional Democrats to their aggressive Republican abusers, women allow men to repeatedly humiliate and degrade them, while making every effort to rationalize and apologize for their masters' behavior.

Men are only taking advantage of everything that women allow them to do.

Obama just did something I was convinced I would never see an American politician do again - he challenged us to face the truth about ourselves. As Glenn points out, only time will tell whether we Americans will collectively rise to this challenge or retreat back to our mind-numbing distractions.

And Obama accomplished one other thing that was personally meaningful to me - he made me admit to myself that I really do want to give this country one more chance.