Instead, it's become just a standard foreign policy tool for this country, and in many places, the preferred one - the first resort, not the last.

-- GlennGreenwald

While I agree with others who have discussed the motives behind Iraq (money, oil, chaos, etc.), I'm fascinated by the rank and file uber-Bush supporters. Of course there are the fundamentalist Evangelicals, but then there's another group. I've been listening to them in coffee shops in my conservative area, reading their comments on blogs (which I know aren't necessarily representative), listening to when they call into radio shows, seeing their e-mails to O'Reilly (my gym just loves Fox News!), and something has become abundantly clear, and it's something you, Glenn have said many times about the power structure and media:

They simply want perpetual war. Because they see Bush as the man who has brought them and can continue to bring them perpetual war, there is nothing he can do, whether related to foreign policy or anything else, that will make their support waiver. And they will rationalize his actions and incompetence forever to protect him. That's why all the double standards exist - because they see Bush as the only one who can take care of business. So, they believe he's entitled to special treatment.

On the other side, they see Democrats (and Move On, liberals, moderate Republicans, the 70% of the country who doesn't support the war, etc.) as an impediment to their lust for perpetual war. So, they hate them, and will say and do anything, no matter how dishonest, to smear them.

The reason I entitled my post "Captain Obvious," is that it was sort of a "duh" moment for me. Haven't people been telling me this all along? But, I think I was looking for a more complex answer, and I'm not sure there is one. I think we just live in a country with millions of people who love war above all else. Maybe I ignored it because it's, frankly, frightening.

Your post goes right back to O'Reilly's comment that "there isn't much of a far right in this country" and that's why he spends so much time talking about "the far left."

He has it completely opposite. As Glenn notes, your point is vitally important. Would the right wing noise machine be able to function if it became clear to everyone that there is no larger "left" or "liberal" or "progressive" movement? That's where their real war is. I guess that's why they had to manufacture a movement. Movement Conservatives need an enemy to push their policies. If they don't have one, they'll just create one.

I'd like to echo m.b.f.'s earlier comments about contacting the Secret Service. That is unnecessary, and it's the exact tactic that the right wing used with the HuffPo Cheney thread in order to stifle dissent and free speech.

I don't agree with what the parties in either instance said. But, they have a right to say it. No one on the Cheney thread made "threats." Unless anyone at LGF has made a threat, this is not a matter for the Secret Service (or the FBI, which is where the comments from the Cheney thread were sent. I'm sure the FBI had a great laugh over the outraged and indignant conservative who sent them).

As Glenn suggests, it's a job for the MSM - to point out how disengenuous the right's "one set of rules for us, one set of rules for everyone else's" theory is.

But, that's neither here nor there.

Anyway, to respond to the 9/11 conspiracy theorists: Glenn does not have to ascribe to the point of view that BushCo. perpetrated 9/11 to be a credible source on the Administration's illegal activities, nor does he have to mention that there are people who dispute the official story re 9/11 in every post he writes which has to do with post-9/11 governance.

There are other issues, ones which are important. Ignoring them until it can be proved that 9/11 was, in fact, committed by the Administration (something that will likely never be proven, even on the remote possibility it's true) isn't going to get anyone anywhere.