You wrote:

Actually, you don't know this with "great certainty." This is what you are merely speculating is true.

Very few people wake up and consciously think: "What I am saying today I know to be false, but I am saying it anyway to advance my interests." I know it makes people seem more evil and cunning to attribute such Lex Luthor-like manipulation to them. But many advocates -- including many on the Right -- convince themselves that they are right and honest every bit as much you do.

I don't expect anyone to accept on faith that I know what I purport to know about Hugh Hewitt, but during the 1980s and 1990s we both worked in the land-use policy arena in southern California. Mr. Hewitt was the high-powered attorney most in demand by unscrupulous land developers. I know how he thinks from having worked on the opposite side from him on many projects. In that cut-throat legal milieu he was widely regarded as the ultimate power player -- a specialist in finding creative ways around the endangered species act and other land-use regulations on behalf of some of the biggest developers in southern California. That's just a fact, one I suspect you could confirm without much effort.

My suspicions about his lack of intellectual integrity were proven to my satisfaction when The Irvine Company proposed to build Shady Canyon -- now Orange County's highest-end residential development -- next to his neighborhood in Irvine. Hugh morphed into a NIMBY protester, writing letters to newspapers and decrying the loss of native plants and wildlife! But his gifts were for ramming projects through the system, not blocking them, so his lame protest letters had no effect (other than to leave many of us shaking our heads at his utter lack of shame).

Anyway, it's your prerogative to think I'm full of it, but I do urge you to research Hugh's background as a land-use attorney -- you'll find that your Lex Luthor comparison is actually quite apt.

As always, it is astonishing to observe how the same human brain can accommodate those two opposite thoughts only a few months apart without even realizing that it is doing so.

I'm guessing that this was simply an unfortunate rhetorical flourish, because I'm pretty sure Glenn knows that few, if any, of the high-level hypocrites of the right believe their own BS. Having followed Hugh Hewitt (at a safe distance) for decades, I know with great certainty that everything he says and does is calculated, and every position he takes at a given time is based strictly on those calculations. He would gladly and persuasively argue that black is white or that up is down if he believed it would help his glorious cause (and his own bottom line). If only 3 people out of 10 are willing to suspend disbelief and go along for the ride he has done his job well.

I expect that virtually everyone else who has risen to the top of the right-wing BS machine knows exactly what they're doing. They sold out their intellectual integrity a long time ago. The reality-based community needs to stop allowing that people like Hewitt, Limbaugh, Malkin, or Hannity might be anything other than intentional liars and flim-flam artists. Because that's all they are.

I'm basically a left-centrist, and for more than six years I have honestly tried to be "bigger" than those on the Right, to maintain some semblance of civility, but it's over. Fuck them. They unilaterally tore the country apart and now there's nothing left to say except Fuck The Right. Their claims to legitimacy have all run out, as has my patience. For years I held out hope that cooler heads would prevail -- now I yearn for a long, hot summer. My vote goes to whichever presidential candidate shows the most promise in sticking it to the Right, good and hard. It's all they understand. I'm done taking it and I'll bet a lot of other mostly-centrists are, too.

http://progressive.org/mag_wx051807

Bush Anoints Himself as the Insurer of Constitutional Government in Emergency

May 18, 2007 By Matthew Rothschild

With scarcely a mention in the mainstream media, President Bush has ordered up a plan for responding to a catastrophic attack.

In a new National Security Presidential Directive, Bush lays out his plans for dealing with a “catastrophic emergency.”

Under that plan, he entrusts himself with leading the entire federal government, not just the Executive Branch. And he gives himself the responsibility “for ensuring constitutional government.”

He laid this all out in a document entitled "National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51" and "Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20."

The White House released it on May 9.