One of the things which apparently marks you as part of the whacked out fringe crazy extreme left in this country is that you seem to think there might ought be consistency between (a) what the U.S. foreign policy establishment demands of other, typically weaker nations; (b) what the U.S. foreign policy establishment feels free to do with regard to and even in those other nations; and (c) what the U.S. does at home.

It provoked no end of frustration throughout the late 1980's and early 1990's for observers to note that the U.S. -- directly, and through proxy control of international lending institutions such as the IMF and World Bank and IBRD -- would demand impoverished nations undertake vast changes in their economy and social funding in exchange for continued debt service.

'We' recommended 'they' follow changes and economic fantasy logic both likely to instigate severe instability and which would never be thought of doing at home in the domestic U.S. I.e., you need to stop helping your impoverished peasant farmers with productivity aid due to our theories of market activity, and meanwhile we'll just maintain these enormous subsidies to help Florida sugar barons continue producing some of the least cost-efficient crops on Earth.

The U.S. establishment was shocked and insulted when Argentina & Venezuela broke this hold on South America, and walked away from U.S.-led economic advice. And although none of these places were paradises before, their levels of growth and social development now far, far outpace than when they were doing what 'we' told them to do.

Yet your Washington Post and New York Times dorks kept forecasting that it would be doom -- DOOM! -- for these nations to stop following the crazy ultra-right free market fundamentalist nonsense advice we gave them while 'we' didn't follow it at home.

Similarly, during the Asian financial crisis sprung by Western speculators (including but not limited to Soros), Malaysia's heavily state interventionist government rejected U.S. insistence on how to deal with the crisis, again to the usual harsh criticism of the U.S. establishment nut squad, and yet, which country climbed out of that crash the fastest and sustained the least damage?

Here recently the government of Malawi -- no paragon of progressive reform -- said 'screw you' to the market fundamentalist nuts and started directly aiding its farmers in production, and went fairly quickly from a net food importer with a sub-famine status to a full domestic food producer with export surplus. Surprisingly, they even got some positive coverage for this in the New York Times even, whereas 10 years ago they would have been condemned as some sort of hard line evil Marxist blah blah blahs.

I will give a bit of credit to the Bush Jr. administration, though -- they more than anyone else tried to bring the lunatic right wing market fundamentalist crony nonsense policies to the U.S. that 'we' have been cramming down the throats of so many 3rd world nations around the globe.

Unfortunately, we are paying the price for that, and now you can read in our papers what you used to read about as textbook discussions of economic disasters common in, say, Africa of the 1980s Structural Adjustment periods, just, obviously, on a less severe scale.

So, to everyone who thinks I am out of bounds with my opinion that Glenn seeks to "criminalize policy differences," will Obama bring a break with that past? Will Obama preside over investigations and prosecutions of "war crimes"?

No, and no.

I'm really not sure if you're being sincere, E-man, or just provocative as per usual. There has been debate along the lines of your question in these comment threads for as long as I can remember.

For the record, I think the chances of any government for any party self-policing are slim and none. I don't think there's any salvation to be had just by voting the right people in, but by constant and sustained - and intense - pressure for change.

An Obama administration might be more receptive to such pressure - or might be more effective in dividing the opposition. I don't know if that's change I can believe in or not.

Our entire political process has degenerated to a comedy of sound-bites, factually incorrect bloggers, and horribly biased media commentary. In contrast, Glenn Greenwald presents refreshing and factual viewpoints.

Anyone attempting to build a case for a political candidate has to look past the individual and try to determine the degree to which a particular political Party influences policy decisions and cabinet appointments.

If the past is an indication, the Bush Administration presents a blueprint of utter disasters in political appointments and major policy decisions. Blaming Bush for this mess is too simplistic. Rather, I would look to the Republican Party as the driving force behind the Bush years' failures.

Qualified or not, if elected, McCain will guarantee "more of the same", I fear.

To me it is one of the great mysteries, what is it about those who plainly cannot see the noses in front of their face. This is Sister Toldjah, commenting on her blog about an article by Rick Moran on "Obama creepiness" this morning:

"I’d add one thing to it that he only briefly touched on, and that is Obama’s tendency to treat political rallies like tent revivals. The language both he and his wife use on the campaign trail - like “heal this nation,” “lift this nation,” “rise up,” etc - is disturbing to me, because it happens more often than not. A lot of us joke about how he’s treated like a “messiah” by the mainstream press and many of his unquestioning supporters, but sometimes you get the feeling that Obama isn’t too far off from actually believing it himself.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I (and other conservatives) have been accused of “hero-worshipping” GWB simply for defending the man and his administration over many of the BS accusations that have been thrown his way since even before he was inaugurated. There’s a difference between doing that, and treating the President of the United States as if he were a saint and/or god-like figure who was responsible for “healing our souls” and “fixing” all that ails this country.

A 1987 partial quote from Mario Cuomo:

''I think frankly,'' he said, ''it is that yearning for inspiration, for edification, that produced the phenomenon we witnessed during the Irangate hearings. So badly did we want a true believer, a hero, in the early days of the hearings, many of us were fooled into overlooking the fact that the men we chose to hoist onto our shoulders were in the process of destroying one of our most important values of all - the rule of law.''

Clearly the Republican illness is viral, the Democrats had the same problem recently with the FISA vote, and the pig headed stubbornness from their own Senators to see the truth. Whatever mechanism in our national media that prevents us from seeing the simple truth needs to be fixed, replacing editors with a slanted view, and replacing them with a well thought out collaborative effort would make a good first step.