You asked for it, here it is:

1. Bush summons the top 1000 richest people in the USA for an urgent meeting.

2. Bush explains that they have all profitted handsomelely from years of laissez-faire greed and corruption, which his government has actively abetted. But now the party's over.

"If you will not willingly hand over money to support your country," he says, "then we are coming after you. The IRS will audit every deal you have done for the past 20 years, the Feds will vet your private life, etc."

Remember, he says, we have been bugging your phone lines and reading you emails for several years now.

3. Bush announces that they have all agreed to put hundreds of billions of dollars worth of private assets into a pool, which will be available to the government as the need arises.

Obama announces that if elected he will:

(a) immediately withdraw every single US soldier from Iraq and Afghanistan,

(b) close all US military bases abroad, including Guantanamo Bay, and

(c) reduce government spending on the military by at least 50% in his first term.

This will save the USA at least $500 billion per year, he explains.

Of course this will provoke howls of outrage, so Obama further explains that he will:

(d) abandon the "Star Wars" project and sell off non-lethal US military assets including de-militarized vehicles, real estate, ships, planes,

(e) provide re-training programs to help US soldiers integrate with the workforce,

(f) urgently restart nuclear disarmament talks with Russia, China and other countries, with the ultimate aim of permanently eliminating all arsenals,

(g) ensure that the IAEA has full powers to stop further development of nukes by countries such as Iran.

Of course, the critics will deride this as a dangerous fantasy, so Obama explains that he will also:

(h) increase funding for the United Nations, including funding for a new, fully independent body to maintain checks on UN corruption,

(i) support expansion of the United Nations Security Council, and renogotiate members' much-abused right to veto, thus making it a more representative and effective body

(j) join the International Criminal Court, and ensure that it has the powers to arrest and put on trial rogue leaders like Saddam Hussein and Robert Mugabe.

World leaders will immediately welcome this plan as a long overdue change from US aggression. Optimism about improved prospects for negotiating deals on world trade and climate change will buoy global markets.

Stocks in military-dependent companies like Lockheed-Martin will of course plummet: the US government can nationalize these, split them up private-equity-style and sell off the assets. Nobody but Dick Cheney will mourn their loss.

PS: @ Pedinska - I just hope you do get the chance to vote on Nov 4!

PSS: @ heru-ur - I meant "laissez-faire" in the modern, "anything goes" sense rather than the classic economist fantasy sense. I suspect the GOP will at least pretend to head back in that direction after McCain goes down in flames. Will anyone ever believe them again?

This is straight out of the Karl Rove Play Book. You take your biggest weakness and turn it against your enemy any way you can.

So it is that the Fascists have been calling everyone else Fascists - from Blogofascists to Islamofascists - yadda yadda...

Words lose their meaning. Facts do not matter. All that matters is your tribal affiliation. GOTV is all that matters.

But credibility is a bitch... Eventually the clever tactic becomes a tired charade.

I really disagree with this. There's this natural tendency to attribute super-devious, Machievellian plotting to one's competitors and enemies.

I know what you mean. Dick Cheney could lose his temper and slaughter a goat with his bare hands, live on FOX News, and a lot of Democrats would shout:

"Watch out! It's a trick!"

LOL

I don't know Mark Levin well enough to say whether he did this on purpose or not, whether he really believes this nonsense or not, whether he is really capable of such congnitive dissonance and self-delusion or not.

But I have been watching for long enough to know that this is a very old Rove GOP trick. I am sure it is often done deliberately, via talking point memos. Other times it's probably the result of desperately thrashing about in search of some much-needed self-justification.

Maybe it just comes naturally to them nowadays?

In any case, your Machiavelli reference is closer to the mark than you might know. Neocons like Michael Ledeen have often expressed admiration for Machiavelli's "The Prince", and Strauss (the "grandfather" of the neocon movement) cited the book regularly when espousing his views to disciples like Wolfotitz.

The key idea is that anything at all can be justified - lies, deception, even murder - if it helps you achieve your goals. Such immoral posturing has not gone un-noticed by those of us who suspect a 9-11 government conspiracy.

This Mark Levin "point" is obviously now a virus making its way quickly through the right-wing noise machine.

Exactly what I was saying earlier: take your biggest weakness and turn it into an attack on your opponent.

It doesn't matter if it's complete bullshit. The true believers will gobble it up because they are idiots who are desperate to defend themselves from fact-based attacks that force them to think for themselves. They are not capable of that, so they just wait for someone on The Team to lob them a talking point.

Happens time and time and time again...

I blame the gummint! The US educational system is a farce. These people are just products of a sick society, and the ideologues who control the show think of them as dumb, expendable sheep.