My Master's Thesis, Revisited.

What got me thinking about it was a post on MLW today, wherein the author referred to the late, renowned ethical philosopher John Rawls.

It just so happens that I wrote a Master's Thesis in which I referred extensively to Rawls'"A Theory of Justice," his dense and difficult masterpiece, published in 1971.

General Conception
All social primary goods - liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the bases of self-respect - are to be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution of any or all of these goods is to the advantage of the least favored.

I, in fact, replied to "philandrel," the author of the original piece, as follows:

Rawls was an inartful writer, and "A Theory of Justice" is hard-sledding...but the notion of "justice as fairness" is compelling, not only for it's historical continuity with the rich tradition of ethics stretching back to Aristotle, but also for it's insistent repudiation of 'utilitarianism.' Rawls reasoned that people do NOT naturally work to maximize their advantages, but rather to minimize their disadvantages. In the pursuit of that strategy, they are more likely to act in cooperative ways that benefit the collective.

He then replied:

Yeah, and It's Too Bad....To a significant extent, "A Theory of Justice" is a compendium of articles Rawls previously wrote, so the book doesn't go together well. As to your summary comment,

Rawls reasoned that people do NOT naturally work to maximize their advantages, but rather to minimize their disadvantages,

I REALLY LIKE IT! It puts Rawls in a nutshell. Left to summarize him myself, I would have droned on and never gotten him as clear. KUDOS!
by: philandrel @ Mon Jun 30, 2008 at 06:05:03 AM PDT

With perfect, 20/20 hindsight, I recalled:

Yeah, I only wish I'd been that parsimonious...when I wrote a painfully awkward, excessively wordy, cautiously inconclusive Masters' Thesis on Rawls in the context of journalistic ethics. It woulda changed everything...
(I continued in a subsequent post)...
Couple "Justice As Fairness" in that Maxi-min calculus ...with "the Precautionary Principle," and I think you'd have a decent foundation for the ethical dissemination of public information for the public good which, I would argue, was a pragmatic, plausible, defensible "telos" of the Press...and a sufficient reason for the protection afforded the Press by the Constitrution.
That's what I shoulda written, maybe even tried to write, but at the time didn't really KNOW as I know now, HOW to write...

Draw into this discussion the wisdom of the etho-biologist (okay, it's a neologism) Paul Shepard and his vastly accumulative interrogations of the ontogeny and philogeny of the complex, continuing, and syncretic interactions of physical and social human development into the so-called "modern" age. It all just slides right together, and

VOILA! The Master's Thesis I shoulda written 25 years ago...I wish they were ALL that easy...

now I goddadodat to my Diss...

The "Marriage Amendment":

There's been a fair amount of pundritry on line about this, but I think Bernard Chazelle, on ATinyRevolution, got it exactly right:

The Craig-Vitter Amendment
By: Bernard Chazelle

Senators Larry Craig and David Vitter are co-sponsors of S. J. Res. 43: "A joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to marriage." As ThinkProgress puts it:

If passed, the bill would amend the Constitution to declare that marriage “shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.”

They're still haggling over the precise language. Vitter is pushing for "marriage shall consist only of the union of a man and his diaper." But Craig stalls.

— Bernard Chazelle

Mea Culpa: I Was One Of Those Who Tried To Educate Rod Dreher

Yes, THAT Rod Dreher. The fatuous blow-hard for "traditional" (yea, verily, nearly Biblical) Xian morality and values wants to live in a 'godly' community...but keep his cushy, pretty-well-paid ($75-100k/yr, masa o menos) job at the Dallas Morning News. The God-Mammon thing gets 'em every time.

And yes, it is true, I taught classes at LSU's J-School in the mid-'80s, in which Rod Dreher was a student. I blame myself for not foreseeing all this and flunking his ass right the fuck out of school...

Chris Floyd: He Talk, You Listen

"Let's be clear about one thing: Israel will not attack Iran without the full knowledge and approval of the United States government. The trigger of the "warning shot" of Israel's long-range air-strike exercise last week was actually pulled in Washington
(...)
It is of course an article of faith for some people that the Israeli tails wags the big American dog. This rather ludicrous assertion is nothing more than the pernicious doctrine of "American exceptionalism" tricked out in "dissident" drag. For its underlying assumption is that good ole true-blue American elites would never commit war crimes or seek empire and geopolitical dominion unless they had somehow been tricked into it by those wily Jews. This is exactly backwards. If Israel was of no use to the American elite's domination agenda, then it would be discarded, or at least downgraded in terms of military, economic and diplomatic support.

There's more. Go read.

"I'M Voting Republican..."

(H/t, Carinthia at WWL.)

Hey Folks! Stay Tuned As We Find...America's Next Genius...

With your host, the genial, child-murdering, civilian-bombing war-criminal, everybody's favorite shitty pilot, let's hear it for BOMBING JOHN MCCAIN!!!

McCain will inspire "the ingenuity and resolve of the American people by offering a $300 million prize for the development of a battery package that has the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars."

Arthur Silber riffs on this whole concept with unrestrained delight over on his blog. Arthur Silber is in a league of his own when it comes to this kinda stuff:

This is brilliant. With regard to the most dauntingly complex issues involving our dependence on fossil fuel and the fabric and operation of our entire economy and culture, which are made up of hundreds of thousands of interconnected elements that all affect each other in a dizzying multitude of ways, issues that require experts to study the relevant facts, economic and political theory and history, etc., etc., blah blah and blah for decades, after all of which most of these same experts ponderously announce, "Well, huh. Who the hell knows? This is complicated, man," all our problems will now be solved. All we need to do is make the Murkin peepul think they're playing the greatest teevee game show of all time!

And if you win, you get a really, really big prize!

Arthur's a bit sheltered, you can see. He lives very close to the bone, and so I doubt he avails himself of cable/satellite tv (in fact, he lives only on the proceeds he can promote from his writing; the link's here...) and so he might thereby have missed a (trivial) distinction, between a "game" show and a reality show. Game shows showcase trivial skills and/or shallow mastery of trivial, arcane knowledges. "Reality" shows are more or less the lebenswelt equivalent of professional wrestling: there at least seems to be 'real' consequences at stake. America's Next Chef/Model/Band/Vocalist/Hairdresser/Couturier/Cowboy/Poker star. C'mon, you cheetoh-stained, basement-dwelling, acne-spotted, virginal geniuses! Show us your star turn, save the planet, bring back cheap gas, and All This Can Be YOURS!!!!!

Which should not deflect significantly from the rest of his analysis. Arthur understands things...

"shitpisscuntfuckcocksuckermotherfuckerandtits": You say it like a secular prayer...

George Carlin, 1937-2008.
Seven words you STILL can't say on Television.

But you know, I'm pretty sure 'tits' made it a couple of times...

"Religion convinced the world that there's an invisible man in the sky who watches everything you do. And there's 10 things he doesn't want you to do or else you'll to to a burning place with a lake of fire until the end of eternity. But he loves you! ...And he needs money! He's all powerful, but he can't handle money!
[...]
I've begun worshipping the sun for a number of reasons. First of all, unlike some other gods I could mention, I can see the sun. It's there for me every day. And the things it brings me are quite apparent all the time: heat, light, food, a lovely day. There's no mystery, no one asks for money, I don't have to dress up, and there's no boring pageantry. And interestingly enough, I have found that the prayers I offer to the sun and the prayers I formerly offered to God are all answered at about the same 50-percent rate.
[...]
Religion is sort of like a lift in your shoes. If it makes you feel better, fine. Just don't ask me to wear your shoes. And let's not nail the lift to the natives' feet."

Executive Privilege

Invoking Executive Privilege, which is more an executive gag order than anything else, leaves anyone and everyone … wondering not so much if the President has anything to hide, but just how much damaging information he has still managed to keep hidden.

The President’s stonewalling is not only wrong, but can also be described from a legal standpoint as Perjury, Subornation of Perjury and Witness Tampering. As a lawyer himself, the President knows these are not only felonies, but offenses for which he, an attorney, can be disbarred. As President, these High Crimes and Misdemeanors should be cause for impeachment and removal from office.

The forgoing were the serious deliberations of a youthful--acne'd even, with cheerfully bucky teeth and a childish grin--Timothy Rollins, posted on a Right-tard page back in 1998. The tip-off, of course, is that the current incumbent isn't a "lawyer, himself,"--was, indeed rejected by the University of Texas law school--but an MBA of some undistinguished, and irrelevant kind.

As ever, it is interesting if not too useful to reflect upon whether Mr. Rollins' opinions on this matter of current import and moment have morphed--not to say 'matured--along with his physigonomy. Scroll down and learn the years have not improved things much in the appearance department for the young Mr Rollins. Nor have his writing skills appreciably increased.

(H/t Ralph, the wonder llama, over on Think Progress.)

"With Nomination Clinched, Obama Now Free To Be Horrifying Scumbag"

(Dept. Of Harshing Your Buzz)
So writes Jon Schwarz on his A Tiny Revolution, this morning...

For evidence?

So Barack Obama just recorded a radio ad for Rep. John Barrow (D-GA). Barrow has accused Democrats of wanting to "cut and run" in Iraq, and enthusiastically supports telcom immunity. He needs Obama's support because he's being challenged in the primary by State Senator Regina Thomas. Bonus scumbaginess: Barrow is white, Thomas is an African-American woman. Glenn Greenwald has the appalling details here.

Here's Greenwald on Thomas:

(A notorious BUSH-Dog DINO) Barrow faces a serious primary challenge in July from State Senator Regina Thomas, who decided to run against Barrow due to -- as she told Howie Klein when she announced -- "Barrow's failure to support his constituents against the encroachments of powerful Big Business interests." As Klein noted yesterday, Thomas' positions on both foreign and domestic policy are firmly in line with Barack Obama's views and with the Democratic base in that district, while Barrow has continuously supported the most extremist Bush policies, as he himself proudly boasts.

Yet Barry's supporting Barrow? What the FUck?

Actually, Obama proved his bona fides as a scum-sucking status-quo monkey in 2006. I don't know why anybody is surprised. After all, Barry backed WhollyJoe last cycle.

The only thing that matters to an incumbent is incumbency. And our boy Barry's no exception.

No exception, no change. Jus' the new bahss, same as the ol' bahss...

Here are a couple of dots to connect.

From TomGram, via ATinyRevolution, at which at least one daily stop should be part of any critical blog regimen:

We're ALL North Koreans Now!

...The collapse of North Korean agriculture in the 1990s was not the result of backwardness. In fact, North Korea boasted one of the most mechanized agricultures in Asia. Despite claims of self-sufficiency, the North Koreans were actually heavily dependent on cheap fuel imports. (Does that already ring a bell?) In their case, the heavily subsidized energy came from Russia and China, and it helped keep North Korea's battalion of tractors operating. It also meant that North Korea was able to go through fertilizer, a petroleum product, at one of the world's highest rates. When the Soviets and Chinese stopped subsidizing those energy imports in the late 1980s and international energy rates became the norm for them, too, the North Koreans had a rude awakening.

Meanwhile, from ThinkProgress (though it's been up elsewhere):

Having “spent several months experimenting with the limits of physical and psychological pressure,” military officers at Guantánamo Bay turned to the CIA in late 2002 “to find ways to get terrorism suspects to talk.” CIA lawyer Jonathan M. Fredman “explained that the definition of illegal torture was ‘written vaguely’” and “subject to perception.” “If the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong,” Fredman said.

Sometimes there just are no words, are there? If they die, you're doing it wrong. Wtf happened to "If you're doing it, you're wrong."???

Well Said

Wish I'd Said That

By various, fanciful routes, including through the luminous Arthur Silber, Margaret Kimberly, for the FreedomRider blog, presents us with a troubling quandary:

"I ask this literally, not rhetorically: can someone identify even one meaningful event from the past 18 months that would have been different had the GOP retained control of both houses of Congress? Just one." - Glenn Greenwald

I can't. I dare anyone else to try. Greenwald is venting his spleen about the great FISA treason committed by Pelosi, Hoyer and Silvestre. They are planning to give Bush everything he wants, i.e. warrantless surveillance and retroactive immunity for telecoms who broke the law.

Here is the really sad part. Greenwald and anyone else who is paying attention will be asking the same question about President Obama. Trust me. Change is not coming, not anytime soon.

Ms Kimberly reads Greenwald cagily. Here's the post immediately following the foregoing:

Wish I'd Said That Part II

"This is the way it always works - before the presidential election, they say: 'well, we can't risk losing the presidential election. It's too important. We have to wait until after the election.'

Then, if Obama wins, we'll hear: 'We can't risk losing our Congressional majority in the 2010 midterms. Bill Clinton overreached in his first two years and it led to Newt Gingrich. We can't risk that. So we have to wait until after the midterm election.'

Then, after the 2010 midterm elections, we'll hear: 'well, we can't risk losing Obama's re-election in 2012. It's too important. We have to wait until after the election.'

Repeat endlessly.

The only thing that can break that cycle is if a person gets into power who is transformative rather than a status quo caretaker devoted to the perpetuation of his own power. People have different views, of course, about whether Obama is such a figure. I don't think people who claim he is -- including Obama himself -- really know."

I have to disagree with Greenwald here. Anyone paying attention knows that Obama is "a status quo caretaker devoted to the perpetuation of his own power." As Greenwald said, repeat endlessly.

Arthur Silber seems to have recovered somewhat from the slings and arrows that seem to dog him, and he's ALWAYS interesting. His musings led me to the previous reports. I'll be tyou didn't know that the lying, corrupt, feckless Pelosi/Hoyer/Solvestre regime had already decided to give the Busheviks the store in the FISA/PA Act 'negotiations.' Arthur's pissed, and you should be too.

FYEIEIO, New Blog: A Chinchilla of Hope

There I shall be recounting and chronicling as much, and as honestly, as possible my baby Lila's (and my) battle with her cancer. There's a couple of posts there now. Don't focus on any one post, please; they're an evolving body of knowledge...

There's a bunch of research that suggests writing about stuff actually contributes to measurable amelioration of certain kinds of psychological complications of grief, etc... When I usta teach writing, i advocated for it to my students on the basis that I, at least, needed to write in order to learn what I knew and how I knew it. I approach this in the same spirit. I'm gonna be trying to figure this out on the fly, as it were.

I'm gonna try to be as real throughout this as I can be, but I might not get everything "right." This is a pretty emotional topic for me. Feelings can obtrude. This isn't a blog written by the ubiquitous "interplanetary ethnographer."

Lila (jeezis, she's a fuukin ROCK) and I (prob'ly a bit less so) would both be grateful if you bent your positive thoughts and good vibes her way. She's my bright, shining light.


(NB: Chinchilla sketch by KDAVIES; used without permission)

Nothing any future president does will alter the current price of energy

There's really only one solution to the problem: nationalize energy production.

Well, we could also capture, try and imprison oil speculators, too. Just as we should capture, try, and imprison (or execute) war-profiteers. How is oil speculation different from speculation in armor for military vehicles?

The SCUM is, of course, absolutely alive with complaints from 'voters' about the spiraling price and the consequent, parallel costs of these never ending increases. A piece on NPR's "Day-To-Day" focused on the complaints of drivers filling their tanks, and couched in a rhetoric that validated the complaintants' ideas that the Preznint has ANY control over gas prices at all.

Of course, they quoted the "Chimp" demanding more drilling, off-shore and in ANWAR, as i that could have any impact on current prices. Naturally, to, when "reporting" (stenography = reporting) the Chimps chump-talk, the program hosts failed to put the words into any context at all.

The media's promoting expectations of the average Murkin that the Obama (or even Bombin' Johnnie) can effect change in the market conditions is a sure recipe for casting the "New Politics" as a failure, and preparing the way--should Obama actually achieve the Oval Office--for blaming failure on him.

PS: I took the "Lila" post down. Lila objected that it (I'd) violated her privacy, and she's right (tho not, too, sorta). That post was an act of major self-pity, as much as anything, which is embarrassing...There's no such thing as "good" self-pity.
> still, thank you for your replies, your consolations.

Campaign Hillary '08: It's No Longer About The "Path" Or The "Math,"

Now it's serious. It's about the "Wrath..."Of a woman scorned...

George "aWol" Bush, Commander in Chimp: The Legacy

The scrupulous and percipient Bernard Chazelle, contributing on Jon Schwarz' lapidary TinyRevolutionDotCom already yesterday had caught this probably MOST revealing moment in Scott McClellan's obligatory, self-vindication cum payday-in-lieu-of-faculty-job that he's not getting, not even at Manhattan (and they have NO standards there). Chazelle:

In Iraq, McClellan added, Bush saw "his opportunity to create a legacy of greatness," something McClellan said Bush has said he believes is only available to wartime presidents.

That sure seems to me to suggest that Bush pushed the country into war in order to become that heroic, war-time leader, the "Commander-In-Chim...er, Chief. That treads right on the very brink of un-protected self-incrimination. At very least, a logically correct inference must be drawn that, hungering for that 'greatness' legacy, he did NOTHING to avoid war. That alone is a high crime and worthy of sanction.

Furthermore, and beyond that, the revelation does nothing at all to dispel (and could in fact exacerbate) the persistent rumors and suspicions of Bushevik complicity--tacit or overt--in the events that eternally and irreversibly re-shaped the whole idea and practice of popular sovereignty that September morning (which is, if memory serves, with wonderful aptness, the name of the first female douche advertised on teevee).

It wasn't in great shape before. It took a huge beating in the winter of '00/'01, and was still recuperating, slowly. People were beginning to laugh at the Bushies. But it's been mortally wounded and has lain, bleeding out on the pavement, for the most of the last seven years. I am not sure it is revivable. The ambulance is coming, apparently, but already the breathing is shallow and difficult.

And even if revival were possible, the damage done is for all practical purposes irreversible. Only once in 232 years has the Executive ceded back to the Legislature 'emergency powers' it claimed in the course of a 'national emergency.' That once was Washington. I see no Washingtons among the corporate pleasers clamoring for the mink-lined piss-pot in the West Wing. Further, I see no evidence at all among the tiny minds of the SCROTUS Inquisitors that they will undergo any Saulian/Pauline conversions on their roads to Donascus.

Howsoever much it is probable the Chimperor only hastened the inevitable ruination of the Murkin experiment, still in my youth--even then aware of the fragility of the structures and agreements that made our form of Government possible--I never expected to out-live it myself. And my great fear is that that has happened, is happening, right now. And the Busheviks are, in fact, responsible for this final, fatal deterioration.

The place in history to be occupied by the simpering, smirking, strutting, swaggering, smarmy little prick, "aWol" George, is secure: he will NEVER be forgotten, that much is certain.

Can You Say "Coup d'Etat"? "Koo Day Tah" Go On, You Say It

"Koo Day Tah." Now you try it! "Coup d'Etat"...See how easy? Koo-Day-Tah! It just rolls off the palate, innit?.

That's been the true 'mission: accomplished. The Busheviks, acting entirely predictably for authoritarians and nascent totalitarians, appropriated and embellished tragic events of 9/11/01 to enact the final pieces of the puzzle they were appointed to solve: to finally rid the hierarchs and oligarchs of that pesky local, civil/civilian, democratic legacy of the Nation, and to install a corporate/ militaristic regime appropriate for a global Empire.

The Pentagon--the iconic avatar of the Military/Industrial/Congressional Complex--has won. It's conquered the whole of the nation, with barely a shot fired--at least at home...

In the name of 'national security,' 'fighting/preventing terror,' and monitoring potential 'enemies,' every right, every act, every ceremony of 'democracy' has been corrupted by 'national security issues' and privatized for personal gain for the over-class. Even as Europe sheds the arcana of borders and passports as impediments to democratic diversity, the Busheviks have INCREASED the burdens of traveling internationally, even on our own continent. And that's really only the mst trivial example. The reality of the take-over is simply overwheming, and would be difficult to convey, even if the national press corps were NOT lap-dogs of the oppressors.

On Truth-Out, yesterday, Frida Berrigan outlined the metastacization of Pentagon-orrhea. And from here, despite Frida's desperate optimism, it doesn'ty look to me that it's EVER gonna go back.

The real genius of their operation, of course, was the development of the (hegemonic) Internets, into which ephemeral and monitorable bauds and pixels can be directed any and all potentially dangerous resistance to the hegemons, with the additional benefit of having a reliable track back to the malcontents, and a record of their apostasies...

Fuukin brilliant!

Could Any Candidate Dissolve The Department of Homeland Security?

If yes, name that candidate.

If not, why are you bothering?

Cuz we are so totally fucked, friends. Totally, irremediably, irredeemably fucked.

Cuz DHS really is the whole fuuking camel. It's not just the nose. And it's too late, already. All they lack is a reliable 'army of the Interior.' Mebbe that's Blackwater?

Is The "Blogosphere" Nothing More Than One More Hegemonic "Lacuna"?

Gramsci, that most (fatally) percipient early critic of the formation, structure and application of the theories of the modern hegemonic State, reasoned that hegemony would anticipate critics and therefore would also provide (supervised, controlled) space for criticism.

Cf: "Free Speech Zones."

Which speculation made me wonder (not for the first time) if the 'blogosphere,' especially, but pretty much the whole Internet-as-public-phenomenon thingee, is not a wonderfully Gramscian-hegemonic invention to authorize an outlet for more or less (and clearly atomized) "public dissent" which provides the appearance of actual accomplishment without there having to be any concomitant action.
As they say in that advert: "Brilliant!"

If I were an authoritarian cabal designing a social hierarchy, I'd want something like that in my operation. It's only when you don't know what your enemies are saying that those words become dangerous. (Wazzat Machiavelli say dat?)

This whole little slice of discourse underscores the adage: "Paranoids can have real enemies."

It's Not Supply & Demand, It's Speculation & Greed

I have long believed that folks who speculate in vital commodities such as food and fuel OUGHT to have more at risk than other people's money. When other people's lives and livelihoods hang in the balance, and the speculator bids up the price, just because they can, I think what they risk ought to be higher, including perhaps family members' members and/or lives.

Der Spiegel has lately paid a little attention to the matter:

The Role of Speculators in the Global Food Crisis

By Beat Balzli and Frank Hornig

Vast amounts of money are flooding the world's commodities markets, driving up prices of staple foods like wheat and rice. Biofuels and droughts can't fully explain the recent food crisis -- hedge funds and small investors bear some responsibility for global hunger.....

Not only is there talk that investors have profited from desperate hunger in Honduras, the Philippines and Bangladesh; critics also wonder if commodity speculators are making the crisis worse.

On Tuesday in Washington, DC, a regulatory body called the Commodity Futures Trading Commission held public hearings on this very question. Farmers and food producers argued that the market was "broken," suggesting that the steep rise in the price of staple crops was hurting everyone -- farmers as well as the people they feed. "The market is broken, it's out of whack," said Billy Dunavant, head of a cotton-producing firm in the United States, at the Tuesday hearing.

Regulators on the commission warned against government intervention, and no doubt fund managers like Anderson would, too. But the crisis keeps deteriorating. India and Vietnam have imposed export bans on ordinary rice. Indonesia is following suit. According to the United Nations, North Korea is on the brink of a humanitarian crisis. After unrest shook countries from Egypt and Uzbekistan to Bangladesh, thousands of South Africans took to the streets of Johannesburg last Thursday to protest high food prices. In Haiti, the prime minister was fired after riots over the price of rice.

On Obama Blogs, and On Clinton Blogs, And On Media Blogs Generally

...Throughout 'em all, there obtains more or less the same tone: The "corporate Press"--The "Village Scribery"--has decided it's a far better, more hopeful, more promising, more AMERICAN story if the Dem nominee for President is the first black person offered that position by a Major Party than if it were the first female person.

You see, the country is hitting a bad patch and the corporate press is, first and foremost, a bunch of 'home-towners.' The 'home-town' of the pundit class is the mystical, mythical 'shining City on the Hill,' where they are all members, with cards and everything; they're very important people... So the 'home-towners' are plumping for the 'development' that best amplifies and mirrors their own extreme senses of self-importance. At least in the current contest, they've chosen sides with Obama.

Why? Better for the narrative, the exceptionalism thing, obviously... It's no fun being superior to a bunch of lightweights. Far better to be the superior members of a truly ex eptional culture... There's already BEEN women in executive positions in Britain & Germany--to say nothing of Israel & Chile. It's been DONE, for gawd's sake...This is MURKA!

See, nobody in "old" europe has ever installed a racial minority in its ruling sinecure. Was there ever a black Czar? A negro chinese emperor? a nubian greek god?

NO! No, there wasn't.

And with this bold move, the Propaganda State ensures at LEAST another 30 years of 'democracy' bragging rights, and the refurbishment of the myth of exceptionalism which has greased our paths clear to hell already..

And the punditocraps and the Village elders have decided that they shall be the ones who usher in this new wave of USer exceptionalism. As the ship-of-state settles ever lower into the stoprmy seas, they're determined that Obama's mocha countenance on the figurehead will be the last visible thing to sink beneath the waves...

Or so it might seem, sometimes, to one sufficiently skeptical...

And while we're at it: the Obama campaign should be wary of expecting this treatment continuing when the Corporate Press gets its chance to tongue-lave the stiff, riddled prostate of the country's first authentic "War Hero," "Bombin' Johnnie" McCain...