... is Bush as Slim Pickens riding a nucular bomb off the back of the plane, manipulated into dropping it and naively believing that he's somehow saving the world and his legacy when he's truly on the verge of annhilating both.

Another image is from either Bamford's or Risen's book, which describes the secret service nickname of Bush being "Charlie" and Cheney's "Edgar." In other words, the handlers recognized early on who the puppet was and who was pulling the strings.

NPod, and many others, have undoubtedly learned how to play this role as well so that in between the mountain biking, the brush cutting and the early bedtimes you can get him to disregard the Constitution he swore to uphold or even invade a country if you know the right strings to pull.

With his "daddy issues" as a backdrop and his batting average approval ratings in mind, the "legacy" has got to be an easy target now so that he'll do what they want him to do so long as they manipulate him into believing that he'll be viewed by history as if he were the pilot on the carrier.

In the upcoming Iran attack, just as with that "Mission Accomplished" moment, someone else is actually steering the plane, and pushing his buttons, while he believes he's saving the world by blowing up a small, extremely flammable, part of it.

Old Rule:

“A government of laws, and not of men.”

John Adams

Proposed New Rule:

“A government of laws, and not of men, unless the President tells you you don’t have to follow it.”

- George W. Bush

Congressionally Approved New Rule:

“A government of laws, and not of men... unless you’re one of the President’s men.”

Barack Obama and the Democratic Leadership

Remember when Lester Bangs, (PHillip Seymour Hoffman) the Rolling Stone writer in "Almost Famous," gives the young William Miller advice about how to "be a friend" to the Rock Stars he covers? He says:

“Aw, man. You made friends with them. See, friendship is the booze they feed you. They want you to get drunk on feeling like you belong... My advice to you. I know you think those guys are your friends. You wanna be a true friend to them? Be honest, and unmerciful.”

Now, thirty odd years later, it seems the real journalists reside at places like Rolling Stone as the circles that once brought us Woodward and Bernstein (before got drunk with power) have resorted to covering politicians the way young William was tempted to cover rock stars while he was still a teen.

What we need most, to solve our myriad political problems, is mainstream journalists who are honest and unmerciful with politicians, from both sides, but most are, like this guy, drunk with false friendship, limited admission and a little bit of short-term power.

If only the real journalists would take the fake journalist's advice, whether it be that of Lester Bangs or Jon Stewart, the water would start to clear up, as we'd be taking the first step, getting the hogs away from the spring, to paraphrase an old Texas expression.

... "the delusional is no longer marginal."

"First they came for the journalists (there weren't very many) but I didn't speak up because I wasn't a journalist."

I hate to put a positive spin on a horrifying episode, but perhaps this will cause the MSM to take notice, thinking their power is under assault.

... provides "working journalists" with specific freedoms because of the essential role they play in a functioning democracy.

But when those freedoms aren't joined with responsibilities to go "beyond the basic self-interest that drives people in all lines of work." The fact that most practicing journalists don't see that connection and thus "don't in practice operate as if they have any particular duties or obligations" is one of the principal reasons we no longer have a "functioning democracy."

It's also one of the reasons a realistic possibility exists that McCain will ascend to the Presidency while spreading outright lies.

Because much of the modern press does not believe it needs to go beyond self-interest, it's in their interest to report on tactics rather than the truth. Thus the McCain camp does a cost-benefit analysis and concludes, probably correctly, that a lie works better than the truth as journalists who "don't ... operate as if they have any particular duties" won't adequately call them on it or report on the opposition party's attempts to do this.

...thinks it can run its campaign like the WWE.

Like wrestling, the question I have is are there that many people who think it's real?

Has the Grand Old Party, the Party of Lincoln become the home of "Let's get ready to RUMBLE!" complete with the melodramatic characterizations, the beautiful, tragically assaulted sidekicks, and the feigned controversies?

That it should come to this.