This is a pretty good analysis of the Cheney criminal occupation of the vice presidency. With one exception. At the end, Mr. Blumenthal suggests that Cheney still has some tricks up his sleeve, and that a pardon of Irv Lewis Libby is likely.

This may be factually true, but it has the effect of giving Cheney power. The message is "Cheney is powerful because we say he is powerful." Believe him to be powerful, and voila, he is powerful.

It says something about the state of the union that raw criminals like Karl Rove and Dick Cheney can accumulate such power, and hold the country at bay while they foment their evil schemes. Neither of these people operates in a vacuum. They have plenty of help - from the corporate ruling structure, the "established" news media, the various branches of government, and from the ignorance and apathy of the general public.

Dick Cheney, draft-dodger, five feet eight inches tall, fat, aging, heart-damaged, criminal - is no real force to be reckoned with. It is his support network that we need to reckon with. If our system is so weak as to have such a being rise to "power," then we might want to reexamine the system.

Every time someone writes analysis like this we get closer to understanding how we got to where we are. John Dean was the first to reveal the followers of Bush as classic authoritarians, and Glenn Greenwald has now explored the topic. Others will likely study the phenomenon further.

Like it or not, we live in an authoritarian system. The workplace, where we earn our means of subsistence, is almost universally authoritarian. Even CEOs exist in little slots, confined by parameters out of their control, staying in their jobs only as long as they conform to the dictates of corporate imperatives.

This is why chemical companies pollute, power companies pollute, oil companies pollute, tobacco companies promote addiction, pharmaceutical companies promote drug dependency, and agricultural companies promote artificial food production and animal cruelty. Everyone involved submits to the authoritarian system.

The real question is whether truth-tellers like Glenn Greenwald will have enough impact to inspire change in the system before it destroys itself. The incompetence and criminality of the Bush gang is just a hint of things to come, should we continue on the authoritarian path.

I give Elizabeth Hasselbeck a little more slack than Tucker Carlson or Jonah Goldberg. She doesn't have the means of knowing any better. Network television is an archetype of authoritarian cynicism, and she is likely very beholden and thankful to the "authorities" who put her on a nationwide show. For reasons typical of many people, she identifies the illusion of a strong leader with safety, protection, and stability.

For Carlson and Goldberg, it's a bit more complex, but the essence of their identification with "authority" is pretty obviously vicarious thrill. Like Elizabeth Hasselbeck, they also realize that identification with authority is what gets them on TV.

As long as "smart money" is bet on submission to authority, this will continue. When the corporate state fails, the authoritarian social matrix falls apart. Always lurking under the surface, though, is the opportunistic authoritarian "leader" like Hitler, ready to seize the moment. The next topic to explore is how to prevent this from happening.