Once upon a time a Unitary Executive was unduly elected President of the US. During the course of his maladministration, this corrupt, amoral/immoral Executive and his cronies proceeded to openly violate, disregard, and countermand established Constitutional rights and centuries-old legal precedent (habeas corpus). The effect of the maladministration's depredations upon Constitutional and legal precedent was to transform our constitutional democratic republic into a fascistic neo-monarchy with theocratic overtones.

Since our Constitution was designed to regulate political power by creating three independent branches with elaborate checks and balances to prevent the inappropriate concentration or abuse of the power vested by the suffrance of We the People, it was necessary for the Executive misfeasors to undermine, co-opt, and otherwise disintegrate the authority and power of the "rival" branches, and paralyze or abolish the fragile universal good-faith and good-will necessary to sustain a wholesome and functioning political mechanism.

Now, as other reichs have accomplished during their ascendant period, it seems as if the Executive misfeasors have accomplished their mission. The highest levels of the judiciary are occupied by sympathetic Unitarists, and the legislature is generally co-opted. There are a few embattled judges, officials, and politicians of principle, but they are ignored or disdained by a corporate media as co-opted and corrupted as the government with which it exists in a symbiotic relationship.

And, as Glenn notes, the malaise has metastasized, insofar as the Executive's wanton imposition of counter-Constitutional and extra-constitutional decrees and methods has been routinely ratified and generally endorsed by a nominally bipartisan legislature-- punctuated, of course, by a show of dissent and ceremonial harrumphs of Grave Concern and Reservations.

So it's no longer correct to refer to President Unitard as "lawless", since Congress has systematically moved the goalposts to accommodate his every whim and wish arising from his Global Crusade Against Terror. But what possible reform can be mounted by a minority of aware and concerned citizens that could counter the deleterious effects of this maladministration and the Republic Party in which it is rooted? If Constitutional safeguards have been nullified, as Congress' refusal to implement them makes painfully clear, how can the mortal wounds to our polity be healed?

The ready answer seems to be that a "first step" is to ensure that one of the pre-selected members of the Democratic Mod Squad of candidates takes office in 2008. As I've said before, and will doubtless say again, I'm done with Lesser-Evilism. It's too much like that joke repeated by Woody Allen in "Annie Hall", where a man mentions to his psychiatrist that his brother thinks he's a chicken; when the psychiatrist suggests that the brother be brought in for treatment, the man replies, "Well, I would... but we need the eggs."

It's comforting to think that voices like Glenn's are part of the solution, insofar as he does such good work in exposing the falsehoods and inconsistencies in our corrupt government-media combine. But I'm not sanguine that a steady drip of truth and clarity will infuse We the People with sufficient will and expertise to develop a cure.

FYI, I'm not Chris Floyd, and am only vaguely familiar with him-- although the site seems interesting, and I appreciate the link. But then, I'm a Dylan fan too.

I realize that your comment referencing my post wasn't directed to me, but unlike our pious trolls, I don't believe in a Creator of the Universe, with or without hands. So I, at least, don't imagine I'm sitting next to It.

I can access Salon at work but the comments are blocked by Big Brother software-- most vexing!

Anyhoo, speaking as a fat, balding slob, I think Glenn's inclusion of this Hemingway doofus's photo is entirely appropriate. Lookism, or whatever it's called this year, be damned.

Snarky? Perhaps. Acerbic? Indubitably. Pointed? Mais oui!

Think of Toto pulling back the curtain at the Wizard's Palace in Oz. Here we have a string of tough-talkers using their bully megaphones to launch gritty, testicular, sinewy polemics in a booming basso combining Clint Eastwood's Harry Callahan and Richard Boone's... well, every Richard Boone character.

The fact that they all could be fraternal twins of the Pillsbury Doughboy, down to the smooth, plump, uncallused hands, is a fine irony. IMO it is a twanging grace note to Glenn's analysis.

PS: I also have a hairy back, more's the pity.

People will still applaud and appreciate Michael Moore and Yusuf Islam, fka Cat Stevens, long after tired mediocrites like Stephanie Zacharek are gone into the dust storm of oblivion.

Zacharek, even with claws fully extended, strikes me as an artificial construct-- an ineffectual synthesis of David Manning and Maureen Dowd. All of her output is a commercial about herself.

Meow!

Glenn, once again you have deplorably elected to take the low road by publishing photos of our screechiest chickenhawks. This practice is misleading, even deceptive.

What the published photos don't show is that before the illegal, aggressive, and imperialist invasion and occupation of Iraq, each Kagan was triple-chinned. It is incontrovertible evidence of their personal suffering and sacrifice that the Kagan jawline has shrunk to mere double chins-- excluding jowls, of course-- in their relentless efforts to urge that the US government and military remain a juggernaut of senseless and illicit slaughter until the rest of the world is subjugated to the Amerikan Hegemony. Forever, if that's what it takes.

Indeed, the chickenhawks must remain secure in remote and well-feathered eyries to be able to perform their valuable, even critical, service. There are an endless supply of grunts to kill and be killed, but the Kagans and their cohort possess a special character and intellect that must be preserved, even cherished, to keep the national purpose coherent and meaningful. They are, in effect, our proud nation's Neocon Chickenhawk Laureates.

Yes, the scars borne by Clan Kagan in their collective selfless pursuit of a New World Order may be airbrushed and photoshopped out of their photos, but would forever score and scab their hearts, if they had them.

Have you ever grown Mong tomatos?

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Less warmongering, more tomatoMongering!