The thing I find kind of intriguing with the whole JFK/MLK/RFK assassination trilogy is how incredible people find any notion of conspiracy at all; often angrily so.

It feels like an extension of American exceptionalism -- never mind that conspiracies and assassinations have happened ever since civilization existed -- somehow, it's impossible to imagine it happening in the USA, like we're culturally immune to it. Yeah, right. In the wake of what the Bush League have done to this country, to this government, which is really just an opportunistic (and scarily logical) extension of wrongful practices, policies, and ideologies honed at the height of the Cold War for the worst of reasons, speaking to the very worst of American attitudes, such faith in exceptional American virtue is misplaced. Not just naive; something else, entirely. Something worse.

Maybe it was a trio of lone gunmen; assassination Yahtzee! Three lone shooters, three targets, three kills! I guess, for some, it's a more comforting sentiment than the alternative, and those comfort seekers are that minority who still think Bush is a great president, that the war in Iraq is just and necessary, that our government is benevolent and serves all the people it rules.

But I found those last paragraphs most interesting, where RFK was taking the time for an unscripted response to students, offering his own heartfelt, private concerns. How cool was that? In our era of packaged politicians, of focus groups and photo opps, such honesty and candor is even more bracing. Maybe if that spirit lived on in more candidates today, his death would not have been in vain.

I sure hope Pelosi and Reid hold their line on this, hope they draft another bill that doesn't undermine their stance on the war.

Bush is playing hardball with them, hoping that the many-headed beast that is Congress will break against the will of The Decider. He's got it comparatively easy -- it's just him deciding his wrongful course of action, and he's got veto power, and he can bitch and moan to his mouthpieces in the press, and he's got cadres of vocal apologists (who, curiously, apparently haven't enlisted in this war that they're so vocal about supporting).

But the Congressional leadership would be fatally compromised, as would the Democrats in general in 2008, if they wuss out on this and give Bush what he wants.

No matter how much he complains, he's acting against the will of the majority of Americans in this, and that's just how it is. Yeah, he doesn't pay attention to polls. Sure. He's going to have to pay attention to Congress, and to the American people.

It may take several tries, but it must be done. His notion of "compromise" is "Do as I wish, and agree to it." Not a very democratic notion of compromise, that.

If we're a republic, then Congress is acting in accordance with the majority of the Republic's wishes, and Bush is acting against it, so it's up to HIM to compromise with US, not the other way around.

Meanwhile...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20070502/ts_csm/aretain

It seems crazy, but polls are crazy. All that matters are the votes. But if Giuliani actually wins, America will get exactly what it deserves. Hopefully all of the people being reamed by the Bush League will register and vote; that'll dwarf the numbers of those who've benefited under this regime.

For all of their retrograde posturing, the Bush administration is the first de facto Postmodern Presidency. That's really the key to getting them. Their rank and file don't pay attention to that, probably don't even know what that means, but it's what they're about, most definitely something their leadership is onto.

Words? What are words, anyway? What is meaning? Whose meaning? Meaning belongs to those with the power to enforce it. Everything's a symbol, everything's a pose. And so on. Makes for nice dormitory discussion, but as a governing principle, holy crow, is it messed up. To call them Orwellian is quaint; they'd make Derrida blush.

Scary stuff, really. Nihilistic, at heart, for all their cynical invocations of family values and morality.

Wonderful entry, Mr. Greenwald. Thanks so much for posting it, and for laying it out without hesitation or softening. It's truly terrible and it's terribly true.

I'm just afraid that the information disconnect is such that it'll pass by unnoticed by the majority. Most Americans don't read the WSJ. Most don't read SALON. Most wouldn't even believe in fascism if they saw it. This kind of thing just won't turn up on the evening news.

The insidious problem is that this is really just an extension of politics that were forged from ~1947 onward -- we've been experiencing a slow-motion coup d'etat ever since, an inexorable extension of Executive power and also military-industrial dominance of America. The Bush League just stomped on the accelerator when they saw the opportunity to do so.

What we need is a radical reassessment of our national security apparatus, of the dominance of the military in our country's policy, and dogged commitment to the Rule of Law. It feels like there's some inertia in this whole process that's going to make it a long and very difficult fight, but "Business as Usual" is not going to cut it, even if the Republicans lose big in 2008.

The Democrats can't pretend that everything'll be alright with them in power. No way. And we can't afford to let them lull us into thinking it is alright if they win. We need a new Reconstruction, in a sense. We need to repair a half-century's worth of damage to our democratic institutions inflicted in the name of national security. The Cold War and the War on Terror have hurt our country very badly.

And Yellow Dog, you put it very well, too...

If any "leader" is above the law for even the tiniest, most temporary circumstances, then there is no "rule of law."

ANY leader. Democrat or Republican. Lordy, we need way more parties.