Hi Glenn;

I thought your interview with Sarah Posner was excellent, and very insightful. Great job.

One of the things you seem to be missing in your analysis is the link between the current Right wing evangelical leaders and historic protestantism in the United States. Many of the views of these preachers are logical extensions of earlier protestant movements, starting with puritan colonial activities in New England to the first and second Great Awakening movements in the colonial period and thereafter. So in many ways they resonate with a sense of the mainstream historical American experience of protestant Christianity.

Bible thumping hellfire and damnation preaching was a commonplace event in the American protestant experience. Anti-catholicism was widespread and was the majority opinion up until the time JFK was elected in 1960. You have only to look at the Scopes trial and the career of William Jennings Bryan to see the impact of protestant fundamentalism on public policy, and we should not forget the temperance movement and Prohibition, and the Know Nothings. John Hagee, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and others of this type are heirs of a long religious and political tradition in American life. While some of their views can be hateful, it is the friendly and familiar hatefulness of a longstanding majoritarian protestant tradition in America, and so it is easy for conservative Republicans to embrace them as supporters. They are the good old boys from down home who hold peculiar views on some things, but are decent enough people to deal with.

In contrast, Obama's Pastor Wright speaks the frightening truth to power mind of the black Church to mainstream America. It is a threatening and discomfiting vision of the American experience which activates the anxieties and fears of white America. This viewpoint can not be accepted and must be utterly repudiated in mainstream political discourse. There is no parallel longstanding mainstream religious tradition underpinning the radical views of parts of the black church.

For similar reasons, had there not been a Holocaust, I believe antisemitism would still be a mainstream, accepted American phenomenon to this day.

Well, Glenn, once more you make incisive comments on the policies of the Bush administration. I have this to add. If the Right Wing Neocon group persuades Congress and /or the Courts to give them even greater and more extensive powers, civil liberties, the rule of law, and constitutional rights will surely be diminished, but the security of the United States will not be improved.The problem seems to be the coordination of intelligence gathering by different agencies such as the FBI and CIA, and timely analysis of the intelligence government agencies already collect. Greater unfettered powers to abridge civil liberties would not end the tendencies towards intelligence failures that seem to be commonplace now. The United States seems to be governed by the Keystone Cops

Your post is right in its analysis of the situation, Glenn. I do believe that Yoo and the others are beyond the pale and that history will treat them harshly, but they are not the prime movers in this affair. No one wants to confront the very unpleasant reality that the leaders of America, her political elite, have made this situation possible. It is very sad.

I read that Alberto Gonzales is having a hard time finding a law firm to associate with. No doubt the same fate ultimately awaits Yoo and Addington. It is a horrible period in American history.

I agree with your analysis of Republican tactics, Glenn. The true question is why the Democrats don't demolish this stuff with a factual response and attack ads directed at the foolishness of Republicasn tactics and the vapid media coverage of the campaign which does not deal with the important issues. Your blog posts are great, but their audience is limited and so necessarily, is their effect.

Are you really surprised by this, Glenn. Obama is a skillful and cautious president trying to establish bipartisan consensus on the issues that matter most to him. The theoretical impact of his position on the lives of Americans may interest him, but he has calculated that any real impact on the rights and freedoms of Americans will be minimal. As to the detainees, I think he has decided to sacrifice them in pursuit of his larger policy objectives.

In the short term there is some merit to what I believe to be his view on the impact of this couse of action in regards to the rights of Americans. In the long term I think he has solidified the creation of the Tyrannosaurus Rex presidency.

Walter Cronkite was more anchor than journalist, but he did his job well and, in his day, was a greatly beloved figure. I will never forget his coverage of the assasination of JFK - the collapse of a golden era of hope in America. But you are right, Glenn, we do not see his like today. The man oozed ethics and principle.

I think the strong likelihood is that the bipartisan consensus on these matters, which you fear, will indeed emerge. I see no truly substantial oppostion to these policies emerging in the near future.

America needs a populist, progressive president. This Obama is not, nor will he ever be. That should have been obvious during the campaign based on his caving in on Telecom immunity for FISA violations,etc. We need a Huckabee of the left - or even Huckabee himself, properly advised.