A Giuliani presidency would mean that we would be almost immediately deemed to be at war with Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran.

But in the minds of Rudy’s neo-con advisors we are already at war with them and have been for a long time.

As Matt Yglesias put it in his post on the “Giuliani Doctrine” although neo-con policies are vastly unpopular with the American public, Rudy has decided to “double down on neoconservative foreign policy.”

He concludes:

The result is a chilling vision of a world where peace can only be achieved through American military domination….

The result of this policy is going to be an endless series of wars, a bankrupt country accounting for way more than fifty percent of world defense expenditures, fewer and fewer countries willing to cooperate with us on key priorities and, perhaps worst of all, more and more nuclear proliferation as countries decide its not safe to live in a world where the Rudy-led USA is the big kid on the block.

During Bush’s press conference yesterday, I was asking myself, “could we possibly have a worse president?”

The answer, sadly, is “yes.”

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/08/the_giuliani_doctrine.php

Hatred is not exclusively reserved for Israel. There's plenty of hate to go around. Israel never has been the exclusive victim of persecution and vindictiveness.

Indeed. Let’s not forget the hatred at home that Rudy might be advocating - considering his extremist advisors. In addition to Podhoretz, Daniel Pipes is also advising him.

As Juan Cole said after reading the Pipes article linked to below, “That the Revisionist-Zionist extremist Daniel Pipes has fond visions of rounding up Muslim Americans and putting them in concentration camps isn't a big surprise.”

Maybe there’s a place for Michelle Malkin in Rudy’s cabinet too. When it comes to extremism, she’s got nothing on Pipes.

http://www.danielpipes.org/article/2309

Is the passage of this legislation likely before Mukasey’s confirmation hearings?

None of this should be happening even if Bush were at the height of his popularity and politically powerful, but he’s not.

Bush is lame duck, a political albatross to his own party, and a historically unpopular President, yet he continues to act like a Roman Emperor demanding total capitulation and subservience – and, for some reason, both political parties and our corporate media comply.

When members of his own party should be distancing themselves from him and his unpopular policies, they instead fall in line and salute him. The opposition party, rather than seizing this political opportunity afforded them, cower in fear. And the corporate media treat him as invincible, constantly warning of the dangers of disagreeing with him.

The public, meanwhile, is left to shake their heads in disbelief, because what is happening makes absolutely no sense on so many levels. It’s all so unreal. All the old rules no longer apply and Mr. 29% somehow has a “mandate” to do as he pleases.

We’ve entered a fantasy world where, like Alice, we’re running as fast as we can but not getting anywhere. And our political choices seem to be explained by the Cheshire Cat:

"In that direction," the Cat said, waving its right paw round, "lives a Hatter: and in that direction," waving the other paw, "lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad."

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad." "How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice. "You must be, said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

Maddening.

Steven D. over at Booman Tribune has a similar post this morning expressing the frustration that millions of loyal Democratic voters have – that “it wasn't Moveon who "betrayed us" with their ad, but our Dem leaders who failed to stand up to the right wing bullies in the media, at the White House and on Capitol Hill.”

One reason for these actions, often cited, is that many of the Democrats in Congress are not being aggressive with Republicans because they believe they will reap the public’s dissatisfaction with the Bush regime.

The Democrats “defensive” cowering posture has become so pronounced that I think that the opposite is now true, and if they’re “waiting out the clock” for the next election it’s a strategy that’s backfiring badly. Their base is becoming increasingly demoralized and less enthused about activism – and the more they refuse to stand up – the worse it gets.

If they want to reap the benefits of public dissatisfaction with the Bush regime, they need to highlight the differences between the two parties not obscure them, and that’s what they’re doing right now.

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2007/9/23/72145/4449

Now that (Republican Party candidate for President) Duncan Hunter has declared his intention of cutting off all public funding for Columbia University for hosting a speaker he does not like, all public universities know that they are subject to similar pressures.

It might be a good idea for them to submit - in advance - all speakers, subjects and speeches to the Republican National Committee for pre-approval – or risk losing all public funding.

Oh sure, public universities still have “freedom of speech” - but they now know that speech not approved by Republican Party officials can be very costly indeed.

Lesson learned today: speech not approved of by the Republican Party establishment isn’t free at all, but very costly.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/24/hunter-columbia-funding/