I am about finished with the book having the title of this post. The subtitle is - The Final Phases of Empire, and it is by Morris Berman.

The book covers recounts our shameful foreign policy which has been covered over by people like Hiatt. We are surprised when the blow back occurs, but the rest of the world knows about who we are and what we have done.

A consistent theme is our denial. If you are Danish and you criticize the government, you are not called un-Danish. Only in America do we use this kind of conformity to keep us in line. This lack of honesty is a piece of the end of our empire. The author sees the empire going down with nothing to stop it.

When he first heard about "freedom fries" he thought it was a high school prank. When he realized that it was a congressman, his response is that our Republic is dead. At the end he blames the American public. The information is out there, but we are two complacient to find out what is going on.

It is happening right in front of our eyes.

And the Democrats are complicit.

How much more damage can be done by the time Bush leaves? (If he leaves and doesn't block the elections.)

Why is it a surprise that Bush is making long term deals with Iraq for military support and bypassing congress? Isn't there anything that will get congressional Democrats to stand up to unchecked power?

The really important question is how much that Bush can hide of what he has already done before he leaves office.

Only 3% of the documents McCain's Indian Affairs committee obtained on Abermoff have been made public. The rest are sealed by a deal that requires both parties to agree to unlock them. How many more criminal acts are hidden just in those documents.

The "leaders" have lost the ability to make the distinction between what matters and what doesn't matter about being a nation living under the rule of law.

The Bush regime has done many criminal and impeachable offenses, such as spying on the citizens, torture, starting a war under false pretenses and trashing the separation of powers doctrine.

Glenn has chronicled the complicity of the Democrats in this process.

The only explanation left for me is that the Democrats have also been engaged in criminal behavior that they need to cover up.

Or else, they have never really been committed to the constution, that quaint document that they swore to protect against all enimies domestic and foreign.

The coup de etat gains strength.

constitution.

At the end of Ron Suskind's book "The One Percent Doctrine" he quotes William Sloan Coffman "I never thought I'd live to see the day that old-fashioned journalism would be a form of civil disobedience>"

I never thought the constitution would be trashed.

Gee. Have the Democrats discovered the balance of power in the Constitution? Do they realize that the Bush administration is doing everything they can to keep criminals out of court and out of jail?

Every day we learn more about what they have already done. And, they may be planning to start a war with Iran to change the subject before the election.

If the Democrats don't stand up now, there will be little of the constitution left to stand on.

Great job to lay out the MSM's blind support of Bush administration. The influence of the Bush administration's ideology continues to fall and most recently with the potential collapse of the whole financial system.

Will the MSM (main stream media) start doing their job which is to inform the public? Or will they just be good corporate citizens as part of the media empire which is what they take their job to be.

I have heard that the journalism schools at Columbia and Harvard are working on restoring the failed profession of journalism. They will also have to overcome the media owners with their goal to keep the public dumb and to be savy consumers.

There is a large literature about our disasterous foreign policy. One theme in both these books in the title is the need to learn from experience by realizing what has been done, and to understand how the same players are still up to their bad deeds.

In Dark Ages America the end of the empire is upon us and little can be done to stop it.

Economic Hit Men get a country to commit to a huge debt which is used to build infrastructure or exploit natural resources and bankrupts the contry. Now it is being done by the corporations throughout the world.

The link between our troubled economy and wars of choice will make it harder to deny learning from experience. Global climate change make denial harder as well.

But with the happy faces in the main stream media, maybe we can keep our heads in the sand for a few more years.

We need for the Democratic presidential candidates to take down both McCain and the Media.

They can use the arguments that Glenn puts forward in this piece. Namely, we were led into a war by a compliciant, compliant and cheer leading press, and it is happening again.

This point really has to be driven home with regard to a potential war with Iran.

The candidates should take down McCain and the press and while they are at it, point out that the media is complicit in supporting an attack on Iran.

The Democratic leadership should do this as well.

The Republicans have used a war to win elections in the past and this is one of the few gambits they have left. We can expect the worst from them so this is plausible.