Mark Twain's old saying "If you don't lie you don't have to remember anything" sure has new resonance.

I'm guessing Mr. Blumenthal must have pondered what the reaction of the media and public would have been had any of these events unfolded during Clinton's term. What would have ensued would have left this gang of tough guys little more than a greasy spot on the floor.

As I read the article, my response is amazement that after all the mistakes, untruths, and lack of accountability the American people have endured from this President, he has poll numbers of 36%. One might expect he'd be polling 6% and the population would be demanding his resignation or resignations from his cabinet and staff. I am not sure which I find more disquieting: the President's behavior or the country's lack of indignation.

Linda

if you think I'm kidding read the current #1 bestseller American Theocracy which reveals that Bush's diehard base are literally dead enders - theocrats who are hoping that their hero brings on the Armageddon. Jimmy Carter also revealed in his NYT pre-war plea, that his own Southern Baptist Convention - the largest religious denomination in the US - are promoting the crackpot Armageddon myth. This is why a vast swath of those worst hit by Bush policies don't mind. It will all be over soon, when Jesus comes back to take them to heaven.

This President is a bald-faced and shameless liar. When Nixon got in bed with these whack-job dead enders, America started down the road of no return. Without those Evangelicals, his popularity would be at 6%. Even Fox News, the Administration's mouthpiece, is starting to get critical. Without those dead enders, no Republican would be elected to President again in my lifetime. That's sad, because America needs two parties. Even McCarthy said that. When Americans start to leave America, will the party of Lincoln, Teddy, Ike, and McCain learn then? Perhaps this is good because it illustrates how the Evangelical War on Logic is bad for America. Please remember that their one requirement for approval is that he has invited Jesus into his life. Please also remember that the things sepparating them from Islamo-fascists is that they have jobs and they also believe the world will end in six years. When 2013 hits and they're still here but without work because of Bush's outsourcing, we as a nation are screwed.

Americans don't give a shit and they're not listening.

What can you expect from a country that doesn't even care about catching the scumbag who attacked us on 9/11. We'll get exactly what we deserve. We always do.

Right now it looks like we deserve a war with Iran.

Everything this administration has gotten away with is America's fault, plain and simple.

Sad.

Well, I guess that depends on your defiition of "America," Kickstart. 50% of us at least didn't vote for these SOBs, not in 2000, not in 2004. Many of us actively worked against him. We protest, we do actions, we fund opponents, write letters to the editor, call our elected representatives, and yet, here we are.

Okay, so there are way too many stupid/gullible/evil people who've supported this regime. But Bush was a "popular" President for how long? Six months after 9/11? A year?

Yeah, people got tired. I stopped going to protests because I felt like they were useless. These f**kers were going to do whatever they were going to do, regardess of the "will of the people."

I don't know, I'm sick, angry, depressed; I'm way beyond frustrated, I think about leaving the country, every day. I think about not wanting to be an American any more. I think if they drop a nuclear bunker buster on Iran, that will be it for me.

And yet I still hope. I hope that they've gone too far. I hope that too many people are sick, angry, disgusted and can't take it any more. And that somehow our sentiments will be translated into effective action.

Reading this well documented story, one can't help but think about how the true believers in the Administration's snake oil are, for each bold fabrication, justifying the means for the holy end, which will, supposedly, produce a safer world with democracy growing faster than bacterium in a petri dish. Or worse, thinking about those who couldn't care about these matters and through omission empower the bloody professors in DC to prosecute the full extent of their warped fantasies. Somehow,together the true believers and the purely apathetic have allowed the maniacal neocons to habitually spin their political warpage with no shame. Odd - the intellectuals' core of enablers consists of delusion end-timers and disinterested nihilists. Who

says we can't all get along?

But, to be fair, none of this is new. George Orwell noted, "Political language - and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists - is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

What's the antidote? More fabrication? Censure? Impeachment? Long prison sentences? No, sorry. They're inviting notions, to be sure, but are they going to aid America in retrieving its lost dignity and set it on a wise path? Not likely. That's probably going to take enlightenment, but, unfortunately, that's in short supply, from top to bottom, from coast to coast, from Republicans to Democrats, from Wheel of Fortune to American Idol. In fact, it's American idle that's gotten us into this mess.

If only the founding fathers had inserted the pursuit of wisdom instead of happiness into the Declaration, maybe a few more people would've been inspired over the years to raise the level of overall awareness. And then, arguably, a few of them would've become network executives, and newspaper editors, and high school teachers, and politicians, collectively inspiring the masses to understand America's place in history and the profound responsibility it inherited to contribute more to the world than industrial technology, get-rich-quick schemes, and, of course, Girls Gone Wild. But that didn't happen. And because there was never a serious discourse on just what happiness consists of, its meaning was summarily distilled into a crass common denominator - luxuries and conveniences.

Oh sure, America's a highly educated country; you hear that every day of the week. But where did they all go when it counts? Who's helping us differentiate between political warpage and the facts? The truth is, most of them went into the legal profession, banking, real estate, digital technology, and house flipping. Most of them, who are well informed about Nero, and Constantine, and the French Revolution, however, aren't as knowleadgeable about, nor very interested in, Islamic development, the differences between Shia and Sunni, and the deeply other-worldly cconsciousness that fuels suicide bombers. This they leave to the "experts" and in seeing this grand resignation on the part of those who should know better, the "experts" are granted powers to force their utopian ideals onto battlefields and try to make them work with the aid of end-timers and down and out nihilists. What an incendiary combination!

Nero would be having a ball right about now, tuning his fiddle to the sound of the talespin America finds itself in today. Geobbels would be delighted to see how effective modern-day propaganda is. And Hitler would smile at the sheepiness of the masses, completely certain about his astute observation:

"The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, for the vast masses of the nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies but would be ashamed to tell a big one."