I believe that America is in desperate need of an antiestablishment president in 2008. I know that people at this blog site are heavily democratic, but I do not believe that either Senator Dodd or John Edwards are likely to be the Democratic nominee. Either would be a fine president, but the choice is likely to be either Clinton or Obama to head up the Democratic ticket.

On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee has a real chance of being nominated and a very strong chance of being elected. The neocons and the beltway elite dislike him because they can not control him. He is in the long line of evangelical populists running in the tradition of William Jennings Bryan.

Either John Edwards or Mike Huckabee would be very good presidents, but I continue to believe that Mike Huckabee would be the better of the two. I believe Mike Huckabee could become one of the most beloved presidents of this generation.

This is a wonderful post, Glenn, and it is bang on!

Communist doctrine used to fortell a time when the state, having fulfilled ist functions, would wither away. Instead the state, in the form of the unified executive presidency of George W. Bush, seems stronger than ever. It is democratic institutions and the citizen' " inalienable rights" that seem to be withering away.

As to the Senate, do these people, on average, believe in anything, have any sense of history, or of their role in maintaining the constitutional order? I think not. The independent role of the Senate as a true power center in the Republic seems greatl diminished by the actions of Senators like Harry Reid. This is the Alice in Wonderland, Cheshire cat era of the United States Senate.

I think this is just the sort of thing that the establishment fears from a deeply religious GOP candidate. Huckabee and Edwards are the populist dream team.

The moneychangers would include powerful corporate and establishment interests and the neocons. The temple is, of course, the GOP itself, and all the centers of power in the federal government. And so they seem to have gotten together a group to see if they can crucify Huckabee, at least in their commentary.

Huckabee is civil, compassionate, and downright NICE.I think he is leading a reformation of the GOP which seeks to end the politics of fear and hate which have characterized it of late. I think he will succeed.

And now, I want to say to you Glenn, and to all your wonderful blogger correspondents - God Bless us, every one.

That is my response to your last quote from Arlen Specter. You could write accompanying lyrics to the tune of John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the grave- aka THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC.

I was reading an essay by Lewis Lapham today, Waiting For The Barbarians, written about ten years ago and, in my opinion stii quite cogent.

Hey, Glenn, don't you know that anyone who is not a serious, beltway warmonger must be gay and a menace to society?

The treatment of John Edwards by some Republicans is so utterly reprehensible as to be beyond contempt. Noonan is Catholic; she needs to run to confession to purge her soul of this sin. Surely she must know better.

Last year there was a cartoon in the Toronto Globe and Mail, with three Bishops in full episcopal regalia speaking against gay rights with three ordinarily dressed advocates of the same in the background. The caption was something like: They look funny, they dress funny, they are not at all like us.

John Edwards is a fine man facing the terminal illness of his wife, who is suffering from breast cancer. He surely does not need to be subjected to this type of abuse.

These folks need a good swift kick in the pants. It is too bad that Americans can not now elect an openly gay president and thumb their noses at their bigotry.

In the aftermath of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto there was a lot of noise from the media establishment about the lack of foreign policy experience of some totally beltway unserious candidates like Huckabee. As this post so clearly shows, could a candidate with no foreign policy expertise possibly do any worse for America than the so called experts have done during the Bush administration?

And what on earth does Israel have to do with the flourishing of democracy in the United States?

Glenn, you are totally correct that this is a very serious business, and a great scandal. But I am sure you expect, as do I, that the response from Congress, and the Democrats, will be at most a feeble tut tutting at the administration's actions.

As for the Republicans, they are likely to lash out at critics for being unpatriotic and aiding the cause of the terrorists by their criticism. Huckabee may condemn the destruction of the tapes and act befuddled, because he is a good and decent man who will have great difficulty grasping how evil the current administration has become.

This is the low estate to which the United States has sunk in the days of the Oligarchy.