Bill ol' boy, not all of us Texans are dumb rubes who think that our girls getting poked in the glute by a needle is going to make them want to get poked in the pubes by a galoot. I know that's the way the press has played it, and the comedians have run with it: it's a lot more fun, and a lot easier, too, to make fun of dumb southerners than to actually dig into what's going on.

But you know what? It turns out that a lot of parents are up in arms not because of religion or sex, but because Gov. Rick Perry wants the Government Man to show up at your door with a needle and a smile and say, "Hi! Bring your daughters up! I'm here to help you!" And what we have to go on is the word of Merck--you remember them, those clever guys what brought us Vioxx--and a Republican governor and the FDA under the Bush Administration. And we were told by executive order that our daughters were getting this vaccine, like it or not. Starting at age 11. And Merck, who has lobbied dozens of state legislatures for the same thing, is the only company that manufactures it. No longitudinal studies, no chance for the parents to have a yay or nay; just bend over, baby.

Yuppers, that sure fills me with confidence. How about a few jokes about that, Bill?

Now it may turn out that I have my daughter get this vaccine. Once I have more information. Which Merck and Gov. Perry seem in an almighty hurry to avoid letting me get, to be honest. But you know, Bill, I'd kinda like a choice about it. I'd kind of like the government to advise me about my daughter's health, not order me around on it. Particular on a vaccine that hasn't been fully tested, and only works on some people on some types of cancer, and which we haven't found out the side-effects of yet.

Call me crazy. But don't call me a right-wing Christian wacko. Especially as I'm Jewish.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the folks on the right who engage in these reprehensible tactics--the Bill O'Reillys and Sean Hannitys and Rush Limbaughs and Ann Coulters and the other folks like Jonah Goldberg and Hugh Hewitt and John Podhoretz--are classic bullies. As Glenn points out, they name-call and effeminatize (ugh, what a word) their opponents, but I note that they are here, in the U.S., not in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Like Hannity, they demand apologies for behavior in others that they self-rightously refuse to observe themselves. They decry the evils of "trial lawyers," until they are threatened, and then file lawsuits, like Bill O'Reilly. They are eager to send other fathers in their mid-thirties to war, but refuse to go themselves, like Jonah Goldberg. And so on.

And like all bullies, they accuse others of the behavior and lack they see in themselves. They are cowards, and they know it. So they go on the attack. And they are led by George Bush, who hid from Vietnam in the National Guard (and didn't finish his service), and Dick Cheney, who had "other priorities," and now demonstrates his manliness by being belicose with Hamid Karzai and Wolf Blitzer.

God help us all.

Nasty election cycles are hardly new, of course; accusations of infidelity, miscegnation, and adultery go back at least 100 years. But certainly the last three election cycles have shown us a level of viciousness that is striking, from the mugging of John McCain in South Carolina in 2000 to the horrific attack commercial on Harold Ford in Tennessee in 2006. And now, with no clear standard-bearer to lead them in 2008, the Republicans are turning on themselves like the Kilkenney cats.

My heart bleeds.

They have sown the wind, and are reaping the whirlwind. And if this, along with their evil social policies, their outright class warfare, their war-mongering, their industry-friendly but environmentally disastrous policies, their economically disastrous tax plans, and all their other short-sighted remain-in-power-at-any-cost policies rip their party apart, I will weep not at all. Far better that these hubristic, arrogant fools pay for their crimes against our country than the country as a whole. We can only hope.

Good heavens, what the devil was that all about?

I don't like Paglia very much these days--I used to love her back in the day, but think she jumped the shark quite a while back--but perhaps you should give her a weekly column instead of this monthly business; maybe then she'll be able to focus on a topic. Or two topics. Or three. But heavens above: Hillary Clinton, Ann Coulter, John Edwards, Barack Obama, Mary Shelley, Diane Feinstein, Newt Gingrich, Cheney and Bush . . . it was enough to make you dizzy even before the bizarre sidetrip to the banks of the Delaware to pick up free Cocoa beans. And I'm not even going to get into the two plugs she worked in for her own books.

I would point out the irony of her accusing another writer's work of being "shoddily constructed," but since that writer was Coulter, and since Paglia was correct, I will restrain myself. Still, it's tempting.

Camille, honey: focus. Switch to decaf. Choose a topic. Something.

It's situations like this that make me wish for the parlimentary system and the ol' "vote of confidence." If ever there was an entire gang that needed to be thrown out, it was this bunch.