Dear Patrick:

I’d like to get your advice regarding a certain scenario, one that is certainly plausible even if less than highly likely.

Suppose I get to the airport for my scheduled flight to see my mother in Boca Raton, and the gate attendant announces that mechanical problems have forced the airline to substitute a Beechcraft King Air 200 for the plane originally scheduled to make the trip? This scenario makes me extremely anxious, and I’m quite concerned that the mere possibility of its occurrence will prevent me from having regular bowel movements until I return from visiting my mother in Florida next month.

I wonder: do you think the TSA should mandate pre-flight psychological examinations of every boarding passenger to determine the likelihood that any of them will try to rip the door open mid-flight and murder everyone on board? Do you suppose random psychiatric evaluations of the passengers might suffice, or do you think that every passenger over the age of three years old should undergo the same rigorous and exhaustive psychological exam, just to be on the safe side? How about cavity searches? Personally, I’d feel much safer knowing the TSA performs thorough rectal exams on all passengers flying the Beechcraft King Air 200, even though I’m not sure of exactly how that would stop them from murdering everyone on the plane. Oh well, better safe than sorry!

Please let me know what you think, as my mother is waiting for me to tell her when it's safe to pick me up at the airport.

Sorry; my sarcasm and sneering contempt are usually fairly apparent, but I may have expressed them this time with a bit more subtlety than intended.

I feel pretty confident in predicting that it's not likely to happen again soon.

I’m sorry, but this is absurd!

I mean, just yesterday, you made it abundantly clear that you were an ally of AIPAC:

Bush DOJ's prosecution of these [AIPAC] employees (as opposed to its prosecution of DOD employee Larry Franklin) was abusive, dangerous and wrong,

while today, you suddenly purport to be their enemy:

Just ponder the depths of irrationality and pathological persecution complex -- the desperate need to self-victimize -- necessary to claim that AIPAC, of all entities, is "demonized" and treated unfairly by the U.S. Government.

My God, man, do you seriously expect us to accept the notion that you embrace the truth of both of these propositions? At the same time?

Ridiculous! This must be what Orwell had in mind when introduced the insidious concept of Doublethink in 1984.

it's likely that the actual confirmation vote will be fairly easy, unless Republicans decide to break with their previous stance on using the filibuster of judicial nominees.

Oh, well that really is just silly now, isn't it? I mean, is it even plausible that a major American political party would treat the electorate like a bunch of half-witted rubes, or so transparently cover themselves with the stink of naked hypocrisy? C'mon, it's not like the Republicans are that bad, after all.

It'll be truly something to celebrate when Democrats and progressives embrace the fact that the appropriate response to this kind of Republican filth isn’t “taking the high road,” or a mournful expression of disappointment, or a dispassionate analysis of its untruth, or – God forbid – an earnest plea for more “bipartisanship.” The only effective strategy – one that requires unwavering consistency – is to denounce the Republican Party as an aggregation of illiterate halfwits and treasonous, bloodthirsty fanatics wallowing in their own ignorance and praying for deadly terrorist attacks that will kill thousands of innocent Americans.

Time to force the craven opportunists that populate the Democratic Party to start fighting fire with fire. Who knows, Obama might even find the balls someday to denounce murder and kidnapping and torture and shitting on the U.S. Constitution as transgressions more serious than unfortunate boo-boos.

An absolutely superb place to start would be the commercial outlined by Ijon Tichy.

Former President Bush and the Bush administration clearly didn't understand the effects that a government's endorsement of torture would have on the psyche of the innocent people that it governors. By authorization of torture, Dubya caused a lot of Americans to become skittish and fearful of everyone around them, including their neighbors.

Here's an alternative you may want to consider, Svutlov: i.e, that Bush and his gang understood -- indeed, counted on -- precisely the effects that their endorsement of torture would have on the psyches of the innocent people that they governed.