Mr. Kamiya is correct in laying out the consequences of Bush's hail mary push on Iran. And it seems insane that anyone would not think through the dire, even counterproductive, possibilities.

No one would act so stupidly, twice, if they cared about the results. Bingo. They don't - not Bush, Cheney (especially) nor neo-cons. Their agendas don't have anything to do with democracy or stability, or even humanistic goals. It's power and proof, simple. The only complexities are in the actual politics of the region - sort of like, "ok guys we'll take what we want, and after that.....knock yourselves out."

Cheney doesn't give a whit about destabilization - more the merrier. It's about getting the oil, all of it, or controlling it in conjunction with our corrupt energy daddies, the Saudis. That's why he's on autopilot recently about needing to finish our task. It's pure-profit thinking - get it while it's hot - and he drives the whole show.

The neocons want to eliminate threats to Israel. Period. Shia, Schmia.

With Iraq there was a healthy component of subterfuge, to distract the public while the Republican think tanks drowned the baby, and gutted the environment, and Bush was cheerleader #1.

As of Nov. that's largely gone. Now Bush wants to not fail, except he's born to. So he'll try anything, raise any stakes - it's just a game of Risk. If he cared about the troops, he'd agonize, or attend a funeral, or two. If he cared about freedom, he wouldn't burden the Iraqi people with a living hell. If he cared about getting Osama, it would have happened.

Emboldening our enemies emboldens Bush. It's his only claim to fame. We empower his cohorts by suggesting it's about anything else than power.

Another vivid, insightful piece from Mr. Blumenthal, as always. Thanks for his acumen and Salon's platform.

To Mike from Bedford - a very interesting take on our current runaway train. Two thoughts:

1. Even though it's a completely artificial threshold, the run-up to year 2000 saw a huge amount of human energy being spent in a combination of ecstatic celebration and date-driven anxiety. I remember wondering 40 years ago about that mysterious, slowly moving doorway into the future. Reports of hysteria at the turn of the first millenium, and apocalyptic expectations, don't stop at 1000. When you party like it's 1999, you will get a psychic hangover, and that's Bush in a nutshell. Rapture, ho.

2. As the Roman Empire atrophied and begin its long decay, extreme partisanshipness rose sharply, and, well, here we are. This is particularly acute because of galloping awareness of limited world resources, and that, combined with garden-variety greed, suggests a lot about growing freedom and grabbing oil.

However, there's another shadow to these phenomena, which I think is what Mike is getting at. Something more like Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, and its see-saw pull of life force and death drive, growth and entropy. It's easy to see Cheney, Kissinger and neocons sharing Strangelove's gleeful, crippled mind. And Bush is doing a fabulous Slim Pickens as Major T.J. 'King' Kong.

We bounce minute to minute as a species, from wild crazy to calm reason. Bush has got a stranglehold on the wild crazy, and he's riding that rocket to nowhere.

For Bush, Comedy + Drama = Comma.

"(where I was ordering Cajun wings)"

Breathless, self-congratulatory and profoundly amoral: Intellectual Disney, or Diarrhea?

Pardon me but I have to go read the new Blumenthal article. Ms. Paglia: fuck you and the chicken you rode in on.

Camille makes me think. Her comment about Edwards's foofy hair got me to look back at his photos, and there was the hair! I didn't look at the other thing - the health care thing - that Emily mentioned, because Camille didn't say anything about it. Just the hair.

I don't have health care because I can't afford it. I'm sure Edwards has got a position on that, but the hair thing is brilliant. Thanks Camille.

And she also got me to look again at Cheney's virility, and Bush's package. They explain a lot about the last 6 years, and as usual with Camille, I appreciate the hunk-alert. Sassy!

Sorry if you didn't catch my tone too. You're totally right. The ability of la Paglia to claim she's one thing and then act in a completely opposite way - basically sideswiping her Democratic targets with cheap ephemera and gladhanding the opposition - was something I thought I'd try on. Feels all scratchy, don't know how she does it.

The outrage in the letters is largely, I think, due to the anger so many people, perhaps even a majority, feel about the events of the last 6 years. We've gotten very close to disaster several times - we've got a regime who rattle nukes at oil-rich countries for god's sake - and seriously eroded the constitution. Just what we need when we've got a leg up in the previously lock-step Congress: an amoral windbag who obfuscates some pretty damn dire issues with "cultural" critique. Well I've got a culture for her, and it's not even remotely on her blogoscape. It's people racing to the bottom of the system, "macho" corporate thugs and weather gone wild.

Camille is free to window-dress wherever she wants. Those that lap it up are free to do so. But I'm free to call her an intellectual Jezebel, and I thank Salon for the opportunity to vent with thousands. I don't mind if this letters page goes on forever; it's every bit as interesting as her columns.