It is sharply clear now that the Constitution and the rule of law in America is a dead letter, as is whatever delimited democracy we once enjoyed. We hear public officials sing the required encomia to the "our great land of liberty" and all the rest of the standard baloney-rhetoric of con-men working their hustles, but it cannot be denied. The shockingly crude and imbecilic level to which public debate has fallen in this country tells the tale, and what passes for reporting of the news and the issuance of "opinion" by news media is scarcely-disguised government propaganda and distortion.

There are, by virtue of the internet, alternate sources of news and opinion, some good, many bad, but unless the American public can rise from their torpor and realize what is happening and take action to stop it, we will soon be too far gone to turn back.

Obama revealed all one needed to know about him in his vote FOR the bastardized FISA revision, with its gift to the telecoms of immunity from civil liability for their participation in illegal wiretapping and electronic evesdropping. Obama had pledged to vote against a bill that included this provision, then voted for it. Even now, we're seeing the promise of health care reform revealed as yet another scam, with Obama complicit in the scamming.

Some may say Obama was a better choice, even still, than McCain would have been, and frankly, I don't see how or why. With each passing month, Obama shows himself to be ever more committed to the imperial state, and to consolidating unto himself the powers of a Caesar.

Honestly, I don't think McCain would have gone where Obama is going. (Full disclosure: I voted for Nader.)

Contrary to Andrew Sullivan, Obama's administration has been swift, not slow, to take ownership of Bush's terror wars and of his crimes of torture. We're only six months into the new administration, and these developments are already old news. It cannot be denied, Obama's deft rhetoric notwithstanding, that this administration believes as firmly as did the Bush administration in unilateral imperial power, and they have no compunctions about covering up the crimes committed by America. As a corollary, we can be sure they will have no compunctions about committing those same crimes in the future...if they are not already doing so.

I think the signal moment when it became clear Obama could not be counted on to realize or even try to live up to his stirring campaign promises was his pre-election vote in favor of the revised FISA law, which gave the government far more latitude in its evesdropping activities than had been permitted previously, as well as granting the telecomes retroactive immunity for their participation in illegal wiretapping for Bush. At best, one could only conclude from that that Obama had no spine to fight the entrenched power players in Washington; at worst, one had to fear he fully agreed with the rotten policies that we had seen in the previous eight years. I think we have to realize now that the latter interpretation is the more correct one.

As someone else has pointed out, the President is not our commander at all, and he certainly is no king. He serves the people of the United States and swears to uphold our laws and our Constitution. Ms. Cheney's father violated his oath by lying to the people he served, by shitting on the Constitution, by fabricating a false rush to war, and by conducting mass murder and torture and indefinite imprisonment of mostly innocent men and boys. Ms. Cheney's father is one of the great evil men of modern history. And she has the fucking balls to criticize Obama?! I don't care for Obama and didn't vote for him, (I voted for Nader because Kucinich wasn't on the ballot), but he's preferable even at his mediocre best than Dick Cheney at his criminal least. Ms. Cheney's father should be tried for war crimes and punished to the fullest extent of the law.

Contrary to the hype, there was nothing licentious in the least about Ms. Cyrus' brief interaction with the ice cream pole. And, while I won't make any arguments as to the extent of her singing abilities, not having heard enough of her material, she is undeniably a better singer than Britney Spears. As to her dancing, since when has it been necessary, or even commonplace, for a singer to also be a dazzling dancer? (They do exist, but they are exceptional.) Britney Spears is able to dance frentically onstage only because she does little or no actual singing in live performance, but lip synchs instead. No one can dance athletically and sing competently at the same time, given the demands on the breath of each activity.

Before we condemn Ms. Cyrus to either a life of dissolution or to becoming a has been, let's let her actually grow up and see what happens.