If I recall, the last time militarism was suggested as a dangerous form of extremism in America was when Eisenhower was president.

I wonder if the writers of those shows take some cues from "the more serious takes" you mention. It is hard to imagine those guys nail neocons so well, so often, without some help. If so, then by proxy our favorite writers are indeed getting more play than anyone realizes.

Orbitboy - fresh air can blow east and west; north and south. ;-)

-- Bryan Hayward

Wouldn't surprise me. Take Glenn's sarcasm (for those who get it) and add Stewart's visuals and you get a pretty superior product.

Allowing, aherm, 'foul' air on Fresh Air - another example of political appointees bringing 'Fair and Balanced' to a public radio station near you.

There are about 20 countries that commonly have dual citizenship with the US including Canada, India, the UK, Australia, France. More are possible but rarely exercised.

Faith of various sorts may be helpful to people. It doesn't have to involve sky-fairies, space aliens, special underwear, or any of the other B.S. religions make up.

Religion on the other hand, was just designed to control people. Interesting that followers can only see this in other religions, never their own. They are all the same in that regard. Institutions designed by man always suffer from corruption by power. The history or religion and government is rife with corruption, self-dealing and control of the masses through fear.

The founders of this country saw the folly of allowing religion to affect policy in ways other than basic humanity and humanity doesn't require religion at all. They seem more like oil and water if history serves.

"I am a human seriousness," fulminated the great Dane, "seriousness" being the most important term in the critical lexicon because it is the word and posture most often and easily counterfeited by the factotum of the status quo.

Is it not Bush's most infuriating flaw that he performs seriousness so ineptly?

It is a wonderful thing to see the high keepers of the serious being fed a huge dose of seriousness!

I remember years ago, perhaps here on Salon, Joe Klein writing that he was "militantly moderate," as if this were an extremely clever oxymoron. But, of course, most often it is the moderately mild and oh so commonsensical who run the military, operate the courts and jails, and fill the daily lives of workers with fear and loathing. They are college educated, white collared, measured in their words, handy with the motivational truism, and wield devastating violence out of sight. They negotiate how many parts per million of rat shit can safely go into your Post Toasties, which medical procedures are normal or experimental, etc. They are incomparably more likely to take five years off of your life or $20,000 out of your bank account or imperil the lives of your grandchildren than any "violent" street punk you meet. But these are the good people, the reasonable people, the people who hog up most of the attention, the ones who are taken-- seriously, with all of the seriousness of tragic "I make the decisions, you bear the risks" inevitability.

May Glenn Greenwald lead a revolution in seriousness!

Don't knock the special underwear until you've tried it.

(And I might substitute the broader term "spirituality" for "faith")

(And I might wonder what christianity might have become at the decision not been taken to exclude certain gospels in favour of others.)

But getting back to the special underwear....

(5) Could someone ask Joe Lieberman what exactly are the differences "between Israel and other nations"?

I agree with the major thrust of this post, but I'm baffled why Greenwald balks at Lieberman's notion that there is a difference "between Israel and other nations". When understood in the context signified by his mention of "moral relativism", it appears Lieberman is drawing a distinction between the nature of societies like Israel's and those of Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the Palestinian territories. Lieberman's pandering to Hagee and his class of people is scary, and "endless militarism in the Middle East" should be opposed, but it's hardly controversial to cite the moral superiority of Israeli -- or ANY liberal democratic -- society to theofascism and Arab national-socialist oppression. In fact, no with even vaguely liberal-democratic sympathies (and who grew up with access to books) should have trouble answering the question Greenwald poses.

... no ONE with even vaguely liberal-democratic sympathies ...

(And I might substitute the broader term "spirituality" for "faith")

a better term for what I was getting at. I was bothered a bit by using "faith" since it is so tied to sky-fairies, but the correct word was eluding me. Thanks.

I guess I can agree on certain types of special underwear too, but I don't need any details.

May well be misplaced, but:

Israel's fight is his fight. Israel's values are his values. And Israel's hopes and dreams are his hopes and dreams.

Lieberman here has such a strange and scary definition of both "Israel" and what the hopes and dreams of Israel are.

but it's hardly controversial to cite the moral superiority of Israeli -- or ANY liberal democratic -- society to theofascism and Arab national-socialist oppression. In fact, no with even vaguely liberal-democratic sympathies (and who grew up with access to books) should have trouble answering the question Greenwald poses.

As long as that "moral superiority" doesn't turn into naked aggression towards the "morally inferior" and Israel is as nationalist/socialist a country I can think of for a "liberal democracy".

Yet I've never heard Gore taken to task for this egregiously horrid choice for a running mate.

Then, you haven't read enough of the comment sections in liberal blogs. Many progressive folks have taken Gore to task (severely) for that very decision, and then some go ahead an pile on about his being married to Tipper... just for good measure. That's a bit much.

I seriously doubt that if Gore should decide to run again he would make a similarly poor choice. (For crying out loud, Lieberman was running for the Senate at the same time! I was incensed.) Nor would he have to, given the decent field of candidates...

However, at the time, it was hard for Gore to run as independently as he needed, given the Clinton saga, and the fact that people still believed in the unerring power and judgment of political consultants, etc., etc. I think a lot of their credibility has dried up to a small stream by now...

So he chose Lieberman to give himself some distance from Clinton.

If Gore runs this time, that would be great. I decided a while ago, though, that we'll just have to trust him to know whether or not he should, since he has been right about almost everything else of substance in the meantime. (As for the rest of them, I'm still considering...)