did a group of sociopaths become in charge of foreign policy decisions? There should be a mental health test before one can become a government official. The world is too volitile to have crack-pot ideologues suffering from delusions of gradeur, who have no place advising anyone how to tie their shoes, let alone decisions concerning the slaughter of human beings. War is just an academic manipulation of simple-minded cannon fodder. It is incredible that after fifty-thousand years we continue to hit each other over the head to get what we want.

Kagan, Perle, Wolfowitz, Abrams, and their gang of brethren are finally able to live out their fantasy of getting back at everyone who ever picked on them when they were young wimps.

I sent a slightly modified version to Jane Harman, and a more modified version to the NYT public editor, appealing to him to have the paper forego any pledges of confidentiality they might need to in order to let the public know what they know.

I used to live in upstate New York (Utica area), and have parents from Pennsylvania (Reading area), does that count?

bush·ing (boo' shing) n.

1. A fixed or removable cylindrical metal lining used to constrain, guide, or reduce friction.

2. Electricity An insulating lining for an aperture through which a conductor passes.

3. An adapter threaded to permit joining of pipes with different diameters.

4. A beating around the head and shoulders of a democratic nation state, usually causing severe damage to its constitution.

Example: The United States in the last six years has taken a severe bushing.

I realize that your call is a rhetorical one, but it set me to thinking. Psychological tests as a pre-requisite to elective office? Mmm.... Sounds good at first hearing, but then....

When we try to think our way out of a collective jam, as individuals or as a group of experts, the first thing we think of is how to get other people to do what we want them to, which generally means resorting to either force or manipulation. We can point a gun at them as tyrants, threaten to fire them as managers, or pull rank on them as experts.

Whatever we decide to do, we console ourselves that we do it because the situation is grave, and demands immediate action, or that our vision will perish if not implemented immediately. The real reason is ego, and an impatience informed, however subconsciously, by our own sense of mortality.

This is probably the real reason why I'm a democrat. Genuine solutions to problems must evolve from the perceptions of a majority. However benighted those perceptions my be at any point in time, the evils which result from hurrying people along, by relying on will rather than persuasion, seem historically to have resulted in things far worse than might have resulted from ignorance or inertia alone.

So...suppose we start requiring these tests of yours. Who designs them? On what currently fashionable definition of sanity will they be based? What incentives will be offered, what punishments threatened if our candidates don't comply?

Do you smell a whiff of infinite regression here? I certainly do.

Jim White @ 2:40PM and again @ 4:52- No jokes! www.alligator.what!.nuts.

sysprog @ 3:18. I think neocons got all the neuropsychoticks and flea bites ills they need.

KB4Hire ought to serve free lemon juice drinks. We can sip from a copper coffer that is passed 'round at the chocolate cupcake meeting in Jamestown NY or Jamestown Virginia? Just so we meet.

I get annoyed to hear lawyers, shrinks, and drip-quack-docs were let-free to prey in the New World. They robbed and re-sold everything. Yea. Tax breaks and land real estate theft! O, the native owners did not work in the neocon world?

Cripes! I wish the American Indians served them sips of coughs-of-culps's-coffee with JUGLANDINE. huh. And toss in a toxic salamander as a merciful dose of true compassion? That would be real tweet? No jokes.

Juglandine was a substance to cure neo-con-ills. The juice was walnut (Juglans regila). It remedied cutaneous and scrofulous diseases; also was good for dying hair black. Many of Americans first cookbooks respected the domesticated ladies. In 1841, "Godey's Lady's Book," and her book, "The Good Housekeeper," INFORMS HOW TO MAKE MACE! ~<~: a accident.

I guess a accident s called a 'accidents' 'cause a accident can happen? Strain juice and some day you will find a good reason for its purpose and 'lethal' accidental euthanasia use.

In youth I hated 9th grade too. If I was to have lived 10,000 years ago and dressed in deer hides, I'd get a 3- day suspension for making-out behind the locker door? I get irked if a gal says,"WE met in Jamestown somewhere before and now we meet at the Salon screen back door??? for a splitting of a bottle of wine and pumpernickel iced cupcakes? gads. I say 10,000 years has passed and all a know is we got to live in the present moment and not sip on neocons constant tonic-propaganda with lime-disease!

KB4Hire. no chew lime peels withorn drinks. a cough of cuppa of anything can make a computer whiz kiss the computer screen with red-wine lips? huh.

It is topical or muggy tropical. If I meet some of you in this Life I'll be happy to split (not spit on the keyboard) a jug of (not juglandine walnut juice or limes) berry juice to hone some good writing ink. Well?

Last night the lights went out in a powerful storm. It was fun to read by candlelight. A few moths did get crackled up in beeswax. The smell, W.T. was moth wings and fur that got burnt.

PA- Turnpike! That road is dangerous. Once a beautiful deer gracefully leaped over the grey-wall-center-medium. I can still see the deer in my mind. What was sad was the deer died as it leaped headfirst into my front right fender. The DOT may have fed it in the early 70's to the No Child Neocon School back then? Road Kills were a delicacy. The VW vehicles red beetle bumped fender got painted by a PA gal. A yellow and green alligator was featured for years on the reliable car. For $2.98 ya' could travel to the moon with a brown eye moo cow. The painted alligators jaws were open wide with the cloud shaped words coming out forth from the alligators mouth...

...OUCH!

What day? A read by candle light is a must.

A yellin' forth for real Justice.

A jittery blush for real commonsense.

And hey! before we get a brain disorder,

A meeting behind the locker doors is okay?

Glenn is so right. There is also the taken for granted definition of "American Interests" which has become a means for financing corporate interests with taxpayer dollars so the same corporations can exploit the very people funding their behind the scenes deals backed by theories furnished by the "think" tanks that have so seriously sold out to corporate interests.

This idea of "American Interests" is one that needs to be discussed and defined since the everyday Joes accept, with flag waving and patriote cheers, acts that have nothing whatsoever to do with America or its people.

What is America's interest?

Remember when JFK alluded to use of force vs. Castro and stole Florida from the GOP?

He saw the briefings, the covert ops, and the plans on the table.

Obama just used the same tactic as leverage with an ally.

The Flag Burners in Pakistan were at work all this time. Nobody would mention it to cover the Bushco. failures, until the GOP's best candidate at this time(Hillary) could kick into play.

Hillary is a Rockefeller/Scoop Jackson Republican/Democrat.

Obama stole the fire. Pattern activity indicates we're working both sides of the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. Who looks like the sooth seer now?

The key is that you don't let the position take over the policy. Kennedy signed over a Bay of Pigs plan that was flawed and made expedient from his previous statements, instead of carrying forth an engagement policy.

Obama can use this as a starting point for policy, leverage as it were.

Besides, those USA flags they burned in Pakistan were made in China(tm). The only people really feeling threatened at this time are venture capitalists who source their labor in Nanking.

a redefinition of American interests is precisely what is needed, for the nation and for the people. Both will ultimately coincide. Good post.