who feel so insecure about their manhood that they only way that they can come up with to overcome these feelings is by advocating violence--usually by others, but sometimes also by themselves. Podhoretz is the kind who advocates violence by others. G Gordon Liddy is the kind who would gladly do it himself, which I suppose makes him a tad less hypocritical, but still just as crazy and immoral. This is what I see going on here. Plus megalomania, of course. But what is megalomania if not overcompensating for one's sense of powerlessness and insecurity?

For whatever reasons (Holocaust guilt, anger and shame; envy of and shame over his Israeli cousins who have fought in war after war; his lifelong propensity towards extremism, whether the Stalinism or Trotskyism of his youth or the anti-Communism of his later years; personal insecurities; sociopathological tendencies and other mental diseases; etc.) folks like Podhoretz find violence, whether by themselves or others, to be an emboldening, fulfilling, validating, purifying, enabling, almost (if not actually) sexually ecstatic thing to advocate and engage in.

I know people like this, and I've always felt that it stemmed from shame and powerlessness that they experienced very early in life, whether from their parents, siblings, peers or others. It's a mental disorder, which normally would hurt only the person suffering from it and perhaps their immediate family and circle of friends and colleagues, but which in Podhoretz's case has clearly hurt millions, and threatens to hurt millions more.

I think that this is what ultimately motivates these neocons, a psychologically-motivated call for total domination and enabled by total violence, so that they can finally feel safe and powerful (and which, of course, they never can or will, being mentally ill, just like mentally ill drug addicts and alcoholics will never be satiated by their sick addictions). Beyond the wish for global US hegemony and empire, is the psychological wish and need for complete and unquestioned power, via endless and unimaginable violence--and which, I believe, ultimately inspires and necessitates these calls for American military empire.

These people are really no different from the 19th century Manifest Destiny hawks who called for endless genocidal war against Native Americans, and illegal wars against Mexico and Canada, to secure the entire continent for "pure" white Christian Americans. This is the global version of Manifest Destiny, fueled by the same exact imperialistic aspirations and enabled by the same exact indescriminate and total violence, which in turn, I believe, is motivated by deep and quite pathological psychological disturbances and needs. These are psychologically and morally sick people, who need to be viewed and treated as such.

Well said, Glenn, as always.

And I hope that you next intend to write about Levin's reprehensible "white flag" op-ed in today's WaPo. It was truly a despicable piece, completely validating all those "defunding the war is not supporting the troops" memes that you and others have been trying hard to shoot down. Levin really did himself and the Dems some serious damage with this op-ed, by making it vastly harder if not impossible for them to end the occupation by defunding it. Which, I think, was his intention. He sort of reminded me of men who shot themselves in the foot or otherwise maimed themselves, to avoid being drafted to Vietnam. Levin shot himself and his fellow Dems in the foot by agreeing that defunding the occupation was betraying the troops, and promising to never do this.

Sometimes I wonder who the real enemy in congress is, the neocon right, or the Dems who enable if not support them through their cowardice (if not worse).

Glenn, thanks for using this term, which I've long viewed as probably the most descriptively accurate way to call what most people (myself included, since it's easy to type) still call the MSM, or MainStream Media. There's nothing "mainstream" about dishonest, lazy and unethical reporting. Nor is it fair to call it the "traditional media", for the same reasons. Nor is it fair to call it the "corporate media", since there are a number of very ethical and reliable media outlets that are corporations (TPM, McLatchey, Ha'Aretz). And while it's fair to call it "big media" or "old media", somehow "establishment media" sounds most accurate and descriptive, because it essentially serves as a mouthpiece for and endorser of the political, economic, ideological, religious and military establishment, and not all of them are big (Drudge) or old (Politico).

Incidentally, a minor criticism, but I think it's fairer to call it "establishment media" than "establishment press", because the latter technically refers to printed media, whereas the former encompasses all media, past, present and future.

And yes, I've noticed the trend towards making Iraq seem like it's modern civilization (including "good", peace and America-loving Iraqis) vs. Al Qaida, but while it might have been ramped up lately, it's been a basic theme coming from the administration and its surrogates for quite some time now. In fact, from before the war even started--i.e. the fake Saddam-AQ links.