I'm perfectly comfortable with criticism of religious behaviour of a public official. In this age of ecumenicalism, we need to be reminded that the greatest problem with belief is that there are so many of them, and most don't tolerate any other.

Oh, and beating up on Holy Joe is always in order. Since Lamont is about to receive the Swift Boat treatment from the media, the least we should do is cheer any criticism of Lieberman, no matter how trivial or irrelevant.

The U.K. is certainly better at creating marginally credible terrorist storylines.

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself." - FDR

"We have nothing but fear." - GWB

All mainstream media has gone right-wing, even Time magazine and NPR. ( sigh )

I think if any of us could ever get a few hours of one-on-one conversation with any of the respected big media pundits or "journalists", we would be shocked to discover how shallow and trivial they really are.

Murrow and Cronkite are gone and now it's all just show biz.

And they do.

Oh, they're not perfect. But no real army has tried to conquer our country since 1812, and none ever will in our lifetimes. The U.S. is virtually invulnerable to a real military attack. This is a quiet little truth that's noticible only by how vociferously it's denied.

Now a dirty bomb or a little ricin in a subway or a bit of smallpox spread around.... well, what's so darn scary about that really? Most of us wouldn't know the difference any more then we notice that New Orleans is still a wreck.

Global warming is much scarier then any ooga-booga terrorism.

Anyone looking to actually understand the neocon mindset ( as opposed to merely lamenting it, ) would do well to watch the BBC documentary "The Power of Nightmares."

It details the philisophical origins of neocons and how the neocon mindset is eerily similar to that of the the Islamic Jihadist. Both are of the opinion that their peoples are wallowing in Western individualistic hedonism and need a great struggle to reclaim their moral standing and strength.

Leo Strauss, the widely regarded "Father of Neoconservatism," stated that even if the enemy wasn't really dangerous, the people should be fooled into thinking it was, because the struggle was the most important thing.

Both groups feel their people need to be "woken up" from their petty, self centered lives, and if a shock is what it takes, then a shock is what it will take.

Neocons and Islamic Jihadists aren't crazy. Figure out what they think, and you can avoid being manipulated.

Olbermann seemed a bit reticent to bring up Murrow, but before he did all I could think about was how Keith's eloquence was like Murrow's, and how good it is to know that someone in the MSM is capable of it.

Olbermann is not, I think, merely acting a part here.

Thank you Garrison for saying it in public: America is basically invulnerable to real military conquest.

The fear mongers who have frightened us into spending 500 billion a year for war machine profits know they can screw with the world with impunity. No armada of 100 thousand soldiers will be launched across the Atlantic or Pacific. The only real danger is the ICBM, and we have more then anyone.

Even liberals like Randi Rhodes have repeated Bush's nonsensical trope 'Oceans no longer protect us.' She should know better, no army has tried since 1812.

The military industry aims to sell us absolute safety from any and all danger, and that's a fool's purchase.

MarkMyWords:> "Democrats must resort to spectacle in order to break the corporate media bubble."

Exactly right. The MSM is biased against the Democratic party for lots of reasons, but ultimately MSM stars are shallow and silly. Spectacle will get MSM attention, whereas sincere, mature policy advocacy will be ( is ) ignored.

The next question is; do the current crop of Dems have the creativity ( and the stomach, ) to do what it takes?

In 2001 Colin Powell signed up to be Dubya's Secretary of State. I thought "this will wipe that undeserved halo off his head."

It took a few years, but Powell's actions have revealed him as a self-interested, ambitious functionary, and not a great American in any way.

Unless your definition of great is "success in bureaucractic acendency."

Washington has rich brats, cynics, oligarchs, neo-cons, born-again Christians and media bubbleheads all tail-wagging each others dogs. But there's no single reason for the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The PNAC letter, signed by Cheney, Rumsfeld, Pearle, Wolfowitz among others and sent to Clinton in the 90's shows that the idea to invade Iraq didn't fall from a Rovian political brainstorm. There "folks" really, really, really wanted to invade Iraq, well before 2000 or 9/11.

I'm sure Mr. Rich is more sophisticated then to argue that the midterm elections were "the real reason."

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AGJ, I'm sorry but Thomas Friedman has *always* been ridiculous. Have you ever read "The Terrorism Bubble?"

First one to call these stories "Swiftboating" loses!

The north / south division of America has a long history,

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Company )

and the United States was created not by Christianity but the corporate charter.

Divide and conquer is old technology, but it still works.