There are so many ironies, hypocrisies and contradictions at work in the Great Millennial War on A Tactic, but here is one that I have not seen much discussed:

The Neocons continually trip over each other in their mad rush to give up their (read our) freedoms in order to preserve order and protect us from random violence, yet insist it is all made worthwhile by our efforts to give the blessings of those same freedoms (at gunpoint, to be sure) to the Iraqis who arguably had just the sort of ordered, freedom-free society they covet -- before we took it away from them.

Bilal Hussein would never have been jailed in my America. If Iraq has "secured the blessings of liberty" he won't be convicted in Iraq. But in Saddam's Iraq, and George Bush's America, "Incorrect Narrative" is a capital offense.

Glenn asks:

"(W)ould it ever be possible to compile enough evidence to force an abandonment of that most scared, petulant and patently false Article of Faith among our right-wing warriors and their media allies -- namely, that our establishment press is a "liberal media" that is hostile to conservatives?"

No.

To quote Atrios, this has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.

The oath of office says nothing about keeping you safe.

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Got that?

The Founders bet that if the Constitution is protected, Tiberius' sorry ass will be, too. Tiberius and his ilk, OTOH, seem to think that abandoning the former is the way to stop the latter from puckering. They are free to make that bet, but that was most definitely not what the Founders had in mind.

I am definitely not saying that they are going to be happy with Hillary. In fact, a few weeks ago I commented here:

http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/10/11/klein_fisa/permalink/e6e08fe432590624b82ab79b06f7f31c.html

Why we have to elect Hillary

Not because she will foreswear torture and illegal wiretapping and secrecy and renditions. Not because she will embrace the joys of checks and balances in January 2009.

She won't.

We have to elect her because the Republican party will miraculously rediscover the Constitution the day she takes office.

And because, unlike their invertebrate Democratic colleagues, they will find ways to hamstring her regardless of the number of seats they hold in Congress.

I just don't think they worry too much about Dem-sponsored Truth and Reconciliation hearings forcing them into orange jumpsuits or even uncomfortable admissions -- no stones will be thrown absent one without sin. At worst, the rape-and-pillage machine will have to idle at a red light for a few years.

I am rarely laid low by my enemies. The battle only stiffens my resolve. And so the first six years under the junta (the few weeks after Kerry lost notwithstanding) only made me fight harder.

What shoves me headlong into hopelessness is the endless parade of betrayals by those who claimed to be allies.

I once strongly suspected that one reason for the limitless expansion of the power of Executive was that junta had already decided that it would never allow a Democrat to take the White House in January 2009.

I now suspect that the prospect of these Democrats running the show does not worry them in the slightest.

Republicans: believe in the objectively false.

Democrats: believe in ... wait, what do they believe in again?

Republicans: highly effective in wreaking havoc

Democrats: capable of making jellyfish look resilient by comparison

The hypocrisy this sorry episode reveals has become almost too painful to contemplate.

"A Republican President approves torture" is no longer a complete and accurate statement. "... and the Democratic Senate concurs" must now be appended. A Supreme Court-approved trifecta cannot be far away.

Principle is to Washington's adults what unicorns are to children: we often see representations of both on their walls, but both are mythical beasts, never seen in the flesh.

Every time I have been able to vote, Presidential elections have been pretty easy choices for me:

Carter v. Reagan -- easy.

Reagan v. Mondale -- easy.

Bush v. Dukakis -- easy.

Bush v. Clinton -- easy.

Clinton v. Dole -- easy.

Gore v. Bush -- easy.

Bush v. Kerry -- easy.

The Dems were all flawed, but in each case I could get some of what I liked, or none of it. Easy.

If the 2008 general is a choice between Hillary and Rudy -- easy. Same deal.

But HRC v. Ron Paul? For the first time in my life, a Hobson's choice. A frightening zealot who will get us out of Iraq and restore a few constitutional limits? Or a mildly progressive triangulator who won't get us out and will gladly take title to Dubya's steroidal executive branch?

Just last night I watched the superb German film "The Lives of Others," which chronicles the way the East German Stasi spied on, interrogated, detained and intimidated real and imagined dissidents. I liked the film, but I had trouble watching it on its own terms -- I kept checking boxes on my mental list -- "Yup, my government does that now... and that .... and that..."

The mere fact that Glenn publishes and we comment shows that there is a still a large difference in degree. But the game isn't over yet. The detention of journalists without process proves that it is no longer a difference in kind. We are on, and sliding down, a slippery and dangerous slope. And I think there is one critical difference that does not favor us: the skepticism of American dissidents (and face it, that is what we are) is a recessive trait, still expressed only on the fringes. By the time mainstream Americans figure out how bad it is, as I assume most in the Bloc had, it will be too late.