In his astute description of Samuel Alito, Blumenthal has hit on common characteristics shared by many of the most influential conservatives today, simmering rage and a desire for revenge. Isn't it astonishing that decades later the blowback of the 60's often subsumes the influence of the "counterculture"? It comes in many forms: vengeful, as symbolized by Machievellian hit man Karl Rove; lazy, like rich kid GW, who couldn't be bothered to have new ideas because he might have to change his mind; hypocritical suck up, like Abramhoff and the nasty meek, Alito. Alito is even scarier than Roberts. Both are social conservatives, corporate enablers and out of the loop on civil rights, but Roberts is more charming and thus, less bitter. Hell hath no fury indeed.

Have you ever gone to visit a family where the parents insisted on showcasing their unattractive, untalented and thoroughly obnoxious son or daughter, despite the fact that every other person in the room, including their other children, had absolutely no interest in the delusional kid's performance? Voila, Ms. Coulter before braces, botox and whatever primal wound caused her narcissistic personality to harden into a fright mask. If she was a liberal, she'd be a second tier stand-up on the motel circuit. But because she's a skinny blond in a roomful of repressed, infantile geeks who mistake her purposely provocative, psuedo intellectual verbal spew for wit, she actually sells her drivel, albeit in quantity to right wing organizations paying to crack the bestseller list. Of course, she hates the 9-11 widows -- compared to them she's a line drawing of a human, who will ultimately have the resonance of an etch a sketch. ie easily erased At best she might end up a plastic bust in Dubya's library, propping up a few signed copies of Bill O'Reilly and Scooter Libby soft porn novels. Sigh. If only her parents had sent her to bed.

Good on Joe Conason for his excellent column on the neocon's desire to piggyback on the Lebanon "incursion" to help jump start our participation in a bigger regional war. Why just stick to the two we're on the verge of losing when we can go wider with our exhausted troops, much the way Hollywood, sensing a flop, likes to open big the first weekend figuring its the only chance to take in some coin before the word of mouth kills it.

Conason really hit the nail on the head vis a vis the lack of logic underlying the neocon vision. Their current motto seems to be, if after doing the same thing over and over again, you don't succeed, continue to do the same thing over and over again, perhaps based on their ability to, in the face of defeat, worm their way into office anyway. Now we have the self appointed VP, Cheney, using Iraq and Afghanistan as reasons to vote GOP. Wait, he forgot the deficit!

But it's not just the wingnuts who are egging on the Israelis as they execute a war-gamed plan bound to boomerang, but some of our favorite NY politicians. The latter Dems don't seem to realize that by endorsing the "war on terror" motif used by the Bush cabal to justify everything from torture to warrantless, domestic spying to just plain lousy legislation, and congratulating Israel as our over-the-top surrogate, they are actually supplying our home grown, right wing extremists with ammunition for their more nefarious schemes down the road. As Bob Herbert wrote in the NY Times, a true friend of Israel's would have intervened long before this point, re "friends don't let friends drive drunk". And that metaphor extends not only to Israel's future security, but our own.

As someone who spends time tutoring middle school kids, I see exactly where Laura is taking her husband, through the classics with time off for baseball if he shows some comprehension of the harder material. Three words on the President's new found appreciation of literature, Books On Tape. There's nothing inherently wrong with that approach, but can he pass a pop quiz? Based on his interview with Brian Williams in New Orleans, let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say, not yet.