I think at this point the increasingly irrelevant administration is merely trying to see just how much bullshit they can get away with in this last twilight year. Their foreign policy is a bust, their domestic policy is a bust, everyone is watching Hillary and Barack and John and another John and Mike and Mitt, nobody is paying attention to Junior. So they're busy deleting e-mails and perhaps even burning stuff that was written down in an old-skool way. And erasing torture tapes. Soon they'll line up and shoot everyone in Gitmo and then shrug their shoulders and say: "What? Gitmo? Where? We had nobody in that place. You can go over there and check the place out, you'll find nothing but some deserted cell blocks and maybe a forgotten mass grave with unidentified half-burned human remains in there. This isn't proof that anything existed! Nothing existed. You do not exist. Go away!"

My only hope is that their pervasive incompetence pervades this e-mail erasing spree as well and they'd miss a few thousand on some server. And then Waxman will find it. And then the new President refuses to hand out pardons. And THEN justice will be served.

I'm an idealist, you see. I have the (snark) audacity of hope. Yeeeahhh.

I think an important point is missed (or perhaps ignored) by Matthews' critics: this man (and many like him) is masquerading as a political analyst / commentator, whereas his job is much simpler than that. Matthews is a hired gun. His job is to insult liberal political figures for the amusement of the right-wing public that gets off on that. Many right-wingers (and some left-ish libertarians as well) that I know are quite strongly pissed off at the idea of political correctness, which prohibits them from indulging in the comfortable (and comforting) disrespect and bigotry for the "other", be that women, racial minorities or immigrants. People like Matthews play directly to this audience, uttering insults and pitching this behavior as "politically incorrect" and thus somehow "courageous", because they are "mavericks" who are standing up against some sort of ossified "establishment". And the more juvenile the insult, the better!

Matthews' non-apology "apology" is perfectly pitched to play up the image of a repressed maverick: "I'm sorry folks, I try being an incorrigible asshole like you want me to, but the suits at the usual stuffy feminist organizations are leaning on my bosses to issue an 'apology'. Well... I'm SORRY that I say things like I see 'em, I'm SORRY that I'm so damn brave and cool, I'm SORRY that a bunch of insecure girlies can't handle the truth. (Oh, but you and I know that I'm awesome, right?)"

Right-wing blogs make me barf, but I bet you anything they're abuzz with how the liberal bias in the media is unjustly punishing Matthews for courageous, truthful and actually... quite innocuous remarks. C.f. Imus, O'Reilly, etc. for other examples.

And that, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is why I don't watch "news" TV at all. And why y'all shouldn't either.

Okay, everyone who ever utters a word about Clinton's "triangulation" and "overstrategizing" should think twice before (in virtually the same breath) talking about how she will not be electable due to something Bill said, or she said, or Republicans hate. Both Clinton and Obama are pulling in record turnouts in every single primary / caucus to date. People GIVE A CRAP for the first time in I don't know what.

Of course, everyone's sick of Bush, so much so that the 2008 electoral campaign began in 2006. That's part of the story, though: Democrats realize that we lost 2000 due to misunderestimating Bush, we lost Congress in 2002 by being disgusted with voting, we lost 2004 by voting against Bush and not for Kerry. Believe you me, love them or hate them, Clinton and Obama (not Edwards anymore) make people care about this election. Not only that, compare them to a can of limp sardines that's the Republican candidates. It's a sign of how bad their choices are that everyone is excited with "let's keep the war going until I'm nice and dead" McCain, only a month after everyone was gung-ho about "I just can't shut up about 9/11" Guiliani.

Believe me, anyone who votes for a Republican during this general election will do so ONLY because they're pathologically incapable of EVER voting for a Democrat. These are the same people who comprise the 28% or so of today's Bush supporters, people who go "lalalalala" when you try to tell them how things really are in the world today. But even these are not homogenous. So, let's stop burrowing our heads in arbitrary "Americans are stupid" cynicism, and let's look at what's going on.

The GOP has been in power for so long (de jure or de facto, whatever) that they've gotten used to being able to get away with any blatant lie they damn wish. I'm sincerely hoping that this will undo them. These ideologues blatantly admit their incompetence (e.g. Bush's non-reading of newspapers, Chertoff's "gut feelings", McCain's happy bullet-proof-vest walkabout in Baghdad) and then happily lie about having said that, knowing full well that there's a record of everything they've said all over the place. Lie after brazen lie, and we've been taking it lying down for eight years.

I'm sincerely hoping that two things are happening right now. Primus, these loons keep demonstrating their incompetence like they always have and secundus, that we (en masse, not just a few tormented intellectuals) stop buying their bullshit. Hopefully that'll end a few undeserved political careers and clean up D.C. a little.

Cynics, shut the hell up. I'm having a dream here. Time enough for cold hard reality later.