to the issues that got you into blogging in the first place.

Blogwars and partisan sniping is all good and fun, but when it comes down to basics, the fight is over preserving our system of government from those who would dismantle it given the opportunity.

When determining why Congress has been slow to get to work now that they've been safely empowered to do so, I think we need to return to your other frequent target, the inside-the-beltway press corps. It's difficult to muster full on support for aggressive hearings while still having to take time out to deny having asked for too big an airplane. I also suspect that the fact that the Presidential race appears to have started earlier than usual, also reflects the media's desire to avoid dwelling on the record of the current WH occupant.

look...something shiny!

OK...not technically but job-one remains to educate enough Americans so that they realize why these issues are important and will support what needs to be done. All this talk about impeachment or armed revolution completely misses the point. If a solid majority of Americans support descending into fascism then we are going to descend into fascism no matter what we say here.

It's the same reason we're failing in Iraq. You can't win hearts and minds with guns and bombs and you can't win over apolitical Americans without a solid dose of truth and more than a smattering of humor.

That's why I still think, one of the most effective strategies we can employ is to continue to express our outrage over the shitty news coverage and to remind our freindly neighborhood press corps that it really IS in their interest to call out bullshit when they see it.

The overthrow of the first theocratic revolutionary Muslim state and its replacement by a moderate or secular government

I know I'm just some guy and not a big state department muckity-muck, but isn't a government that is installed by violent action imposed by a foreign power by definition NOT "moderate".

Just asking......

Here he is......

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/03.25/04-cohen.html

Yes....

Is it sustainable?

No.

This has been another edition...etc

The great empires of the past grew by the military conquest of lesser powers and the American Empire would spread by the same means (is what we're seeing now in Iraq and elsewhere?).

Is this what Americans want?

I suspect not. That is why the people who are actually engineering it have to work under the radar. The fact that they have a complacent press corp who are more than happy to engineer public opinion to comply with the plans currently being implemented suggests that were going to act like an empire whether we like it or not!

The sad fact remains that there are millions of Americans who are quite OK with calling people faggots or refering to Arabs as ragheads or camel jockeys and Mexicans as wetbacks and they actually think that they're a repressed minority because they can't use such language in polite company. To them Ann Coulter represents freedom to own their bigotry. They love her for it.

As long as parents continue to teach their children hatred, we're going to be stuck with those sorts of people. We just need to continue to work to keep them the hell out of Congress!

As you make clear, the image of masculinity is significantly more important than the reality. Of course John Wayne represents another fine example of how war cheerleading and tough talk can substitute for actual courage or consequential action. A quick google found this quote re: John Ford...

Ford was disgusted by John Wayne's refusal to enlist in 1941. When Ford filmed They Were Expendable (1945) after World War II he included every actor's former military rank and branch (Ford himself was a Navy officer and combat photographer). Of course, there were no credentials behind Wayne's name, which the actor took as a real slap.

http://imdb.com/name/nm0000406/bio

Apparently reality is for suckers. The world can be conquered and subdued by force of will alone!

More and more folks are noticing with the latest post, something I've noted on a number of occasions. That is that the current bickering that's going on is more reminiscent of what goes on in a schoolyard than the intelligent discourse one would expect when discussing matters of state.

This is not accidental. Just as we have a window of opportunity to learn a spoken language between the ages of 2-4, we have a window of opportunity to develop our political chops between ages 10-14.

What makes this truly tragic is the fact that the whole dance of calling chicken and refusing to back down is now playing out in real life in Iraq with people dying by the thousands just so no one thinks the USA is chicken (or worse yet - a faggot)!

I guess that means that shooter242 will be back by to insist that we apologize to him......

My point is don't try to paint all conservatives with the Coulter brush,

There are many reasonable conservatives including some who write for antiwar.com and Lew Rockwell and others who come by conservative principles honestly.

War-cheerleading protofascist racist morons nevertheless need to be called out at every opportunity. That they permeate the Republican Party and are causing irreparable harm to our nation is a fact that you can't escape by invoking a "broad brush".

Do you mean the ones who twist the truth into the talking point or the ones who mindlessly parrot it once formed.

The Maher quote is a perfect example of the process. The sad fact is that every word Maher said was truthful.

But certain thruths are taboo.

Its actually fascinating to watch.