yes, i hate those “campaign regulations” which make it illegal to burn CIA agents. also, those pesky laws against insider trading? yet more “direct attacks on freedom of political speech”. it’s, like, the same as the gulag.

Wow; hijacking the thread and using a laughably over-the-top analogy to do it! Nice twofer, Brett.

Nor did any resident of the gulag feel much enthusiasm about the KGB. These campaign regulations are a direct attack on freedom of political speech, and Democratic enthusiasm for them has done more to put the lie to your claims of being free speech advocates than any college speach code.

Closing Argument for the United States of America, Robert H. Jackson, Chief Prosecutor; Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, July 26, 1946

none of the five most senior bush administration officials – cheney, rice, rumsfeld, gonzales and, of course, bush – are currently under indictment. which is, uhm, odd, at least if “a kind of ideological criminalization of active, visible conservatives” really has become “almost second nature to the left”. it’s almost as if the prosecutors in each case are objectively assessing the evidence pointing toward the gang of four’s criminality. crazy!

also, apparently the entire CIA is “almost universally anti-Bush and anti-conservative”. the CIA is of course dominated by leftists, just like “the elite professions, including journalism and teaching”. heck, given our dominance at the CIA, maybe we should quit with our strategy of “ideological criminalization”, and have them launch a coup already. they will install noam chomsky as president, don’t you know.

Fitzgerald is perhaps the last chance to push back the coup…

The question is, will they have the nerve to fire Fitzgerald? I think they will – they have never yet shown lack of will and they have their backs to wall now.

Given that there is no way that Congress will impeach, there will then be no check on the administration’s power. The only effective response would be the response to any coup- a rising in the streets. That is not going to happen- and so I’m afraid I see no hope. But I’m a pretty pessimistic guy- so perhaps I’m wrong..

Last chance??! Oh, come on, chin up jr! Delay is screwed, and Bush’s popularity is down to 38%. These guys are now losing the political war and are losing their cool and their edge. A transparently Nixonian move like firing the prosecutor would virtually guarantee a massive Congressional turnover in 2006. Terrified Congressional Republicans would be lining up on street corners to save their asses by calling for resignations, investigations, etc. of the lame duck Bush administration. Whatever Fitzgerald has would come flooding out in a series of leaks that would become a deluge.

The pendulum is swinging back.

Fitzgerald is perhaps the last chance to push back the coup. Rove recognizes the danger and that is why Kristol has been wheeled out to spew this nonsense. Arguing with Kristol on the merits is a waste of breath. You’re talking to a machine.

The question is, will they have the nerve to fire Fitzgerald? I think they will- they have never yet shown lack of will and they have their backs to wall now.

Given that there is no way that Congress will impeach, there will then be no check on the administration’s power. The only effective response would be the response to any coup- a rising in the streets. That is not going to happen- and so I’m afraid I see no hope. But I’m a pretty pessimistic guy- so perhaps I’m wrong.

Now surely, Kristol must be at least partly right about this.

It is true that Kristol ignores the possibility that the investigative traction may be assisted by some Republicans who, though conservative, are also honest and dedicated public servants committed to the rule of law, and inclined to base their decisions on the institutional requirements of their jobs rather than the subterranean requirements of factional loyalty.

And it may be hard for Kristol to accept that there are plenty of ordinary Americans who are also interested in good, clean government and the rule of law. The public is not as uniformly ruthless and partisan as the Washington power-broker circles in which Kristol moves. So if the suspicion of wrongdoing rises into the field of public awareness, and generates calls for investigation, even partisan hacks cannot face down the political pressure indefinitely, and must respond.

Kristol also fails to recognize other sources of group solidarity and self-protection that are motivated by neither ideology, nor a disinterested commitment to professional or civic responsibility. When officials in the Bush administration outed Valerie Plame, they wildly shot off a bullet that whizzed far too close to CIA heads for comfort. Even partisan conservative loyalists in the agency, otherwise disposed to scheme on behalf of the cause, don’t look favorably on people who mess with their own cover and personal safety. This is a case where the covert operatives all stick together.

But Kristol is right to recognize that the anti-corruption spirit can’t be mobilized unless the public first finds out about some possible malfeasance. And for that to happen, at least some journalists have to disclose it. Kristol assumes that the journalists who do so are not all motivated by an impartial concern for the public welfare, but have partisan reasons. And I suspect he is right about this. Can anyone doubt that if conservatives controlled the media entirely, many of the disclosures of Republican illegality would never see the light of day, or would be squelched and downplayed if they were reported?

The neoconservatives are obsessed with the remaining stores of liberal power in the academy, the media and judiciary. That’s why they are so determined to purge all of these institutions, and to bring about a total revolution in American political culture.

I think Kristol is certainly right about the importance of liberal ideological motivation in important US institutions. For example, if Kristol and his allies were thoroughly in charge of the entertainment industry, we would not likely be treated to a good liberal morale booster like Good Night and Good Luck. We would probably get a pro-McCarthy, Whitaker Chambers-like view of the period instead.

Still, it is important to recognize the significance of non-partisan professionalism and honesty in checking the power of the ideologues. The neoconservatives, like their Jacobin and Bolshevik forbears, don’t understand this factor, since they operate in a moral landscape of perpetually remote and deferred background idealism dominated by a foreground of ruthlessness and lies. They have a genuinely idealistic commitment to certain long-term, revolutionary, and probably unachievable goals, but are willing to engage in all manner of mean and remorseless subtrefuges to achieve their ends.

Irony is indeed dead again (from an overdose).