How could this have happened in America?  How did we get into this horrible mess?  Why is there not more outrage from the American people?  Why is the traditional media so compliant? Why are the Democrats so timid?  

As the full rotten fruits of the Bush Administration's contempt for democracy, constitutional process, human rights, international law, middle-class economics and just plan basic human decency become increasingly apparent with each passing day, coherent and convincing answers to these questions become increasingly necessary.  It should be deeply troubling to anyone who cares about America as a nation and the principles upon which it was founded that our institutions could have become so easily subverted, and our national will so broken that we not only did nothing to prevent these disasters, but failed to act decisively to right the wrongs once they had become so appallingly obvious.  

That's how I see the situation in the Connecticut Senate race.  Not a chance.  No way.  No way in Hell.

No way, that is, that the actual election results will look ANYTHING like what the polls are currently saying.

This race has been a muddled, confusing, surprising mess from the beginning, with nothing in it conforming to expectations.  The current polls show Lamont trailing by double-digits, and it's caused everything from handwringing to outright obituaries all over the liberal blogophere.

Honestly, that's a load of horse manure.  The polls showing Lamont leading by double digits before the primary were out to lunch.  And so are the current polls.

NOTHING about the race as it's currently polling makes any sense--and it won't pan out that way.  Ned Lamont is going to win this election, and here are the reasons why: 

They let him get away with it.

News reports are currently circulating that Osama Bin Laden is dead of a severe case of typhoid fever--and that he died last month in August.

Now, it could be that it's a false rumor; after all, Bin Laden's been thought to be dead before.  But then again, this might just be Karl Rove's famed October Surprise.

But if it IS Rove's October Surprise, we need to get out in the front of the story with the truth: These fuckers LET HIM GET AWAY WITH IT.

I have to tell you: I do get discouraged.  I look at the horrible, monumental crimes and fuck-ups of this so-called Administration--from Iraq to Katrina to Abramoff to torture to everything else--and I cringe in horror at how we are fighting and scraping for every inch of our lives just to try to pick up a measly 20 House seats and 6 Senate seats.  This shouldn't be so hard, I say to myself.

Indeed, sometimes I become apoplectic with an almost violent rage.  We should be picking up 50, 60 House Seats and 15 Senate seats, I tell myself.  After all, historians have already concluded that this is the worst administration in history--and we still have years left to go.

But then, history itself cheers me up again.  And on this day--five years and a day after the attacks of 9/11--it is to history that I would like you to turn for inspiration and a renewed sense of purpose.

Those of you who have followed my diaries over the last year know that I'm an avowed pessimist about Democrats' electoral chances in 2006 and 2008 because our elected officials refuse to stand for what we believe in and get smart about how we talk about issues.  I'm the guy who writes diaries like 2006 will be a major disappointment.  So will 2008 and Why the Right-Wing Gets It--and Dems Don't.

But I've got to tell you: even my unbridled pessimism has its limits when I see the sorts of drivel the GOP and its shills have been reduced to lately.

At this point, they're literally grovling and begging for support they know they don't deserve.

This is unbelievable, sheer insanity now.

Just two days after Donald Rumsfeld decided to excoriate the United States of America in front of the American Legion, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice ALSO decided to embarrass herself with yet another speech to the American Legion.

While Rumsfeld's speech could only have appealed to people who hate America and find brown shirts vaguely attractive, Condi's address could only appeal to those with the attention span of a gnat, and the intellect to boot.

But they appear to be written to work together--good cop and bad cop, says RedState.com--but this could only be described as a sinister version of a Laurel & Hardy film called "Nazi Cop, Dumb Cop."

I wish this were snark.

Donald Rumsfeld came out with a vicious screed against mom, baseball and apple pie today, launching a vicious rhetorical assault on the United States America.

In an especially candid interview, Rumsfeld compared Uncle Sam to a dim-witted Neville Chamberlain, stating that Americans were guilty of appeasement of fascists.

Of course, it's not suprising that Mr. Rumsfeld has contempt for Joe Sixpack, given his intellectual elitism that leads him to believe he has a better grasp on history than the vast majority of Americans.

To top it off, apparently Rumsfeld believes that Americans are deeply befuddled about themselves and the world--not only on an rational level, but on a deep-seated moral and personal level.

I'm not kidding.

They're down, but they're not out.  Yet.

It's time to put the GOP out of its misery this election cycle by standing up for REAL America, and against the GOP's Corporate America.

Don't believe me?  You think that running against corporate America is a bad idea?

Well, don't take MY word for it.  Take the word of Frank Luntz.  And the words of his Republican friends.

Republicans like to talk a lot about faith.  In their incessant pandering to the insatiable beast that is the religious right, the word "faith" tends to come up in Republican discourse with the depressing inevitability of an unwanted season.  And even our politicians have fallen into the trap of talking about this ill-defined word "faith".

Well, there's a reason for that.  In keeping with the typical Rovian strategy of taking one's greatest weaknesses and attempting to convert them into one's greatest strengths, these deplorable criminals must talk about their "faith" because they have singlehandedly created the most faithless administration in American history.

First it was the End of Cowboy Diplomacy, and the ascendancy of diplomacy in dealing with Iran--leaving Sy Hersch with some egg on his face.

Then it was the Bush Administration failing to act on their usual grandstanding and beliigerence to the other branches of government by actually reversing their ground on detainees after the Hamdan decision--not just for those at Gitmo, but also for those at CIA prisons worldwide.

And now the third blow in less than a week: The end of unconditional Halliburton contracts in Iraq, and the divvying up up contracting duties to no less than three independent, audited, competing contractors.

Hope.  It is...simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness.     --The Architect, from the film "Matrix Reloaded"

Do not condemn the evangelical Christians, my friends.  Even as they pervert the very essence of liberty; even as they target and intimidate our citizens; even as they promote scientific ignorance among our populace; even as they corrupt the structural foundations of our democracy; even as they do all these, they are not to be condemned.   Oh yes, all their actions must be thoroughly chastised and execrated--but as those in the evangelical communities might say (though they follow not their own teachings): hate the sin, but love the sinner.

Do not condemn them, for the evangelicals actually have the right idea.  They get the message, though it is through entirely the wrong prism.

Thank you, Mr. President.  

This glorious day--the celebration of our nation's birth--is the greatest day of the year for me.

We all have our own individual birthdays which celebrate who we are, where we have come from, and the fact that we are still here.  But this day is an extraordinary one.  This day celebrates the common birth of ALL of us who are proud to call ourselves citizens of this great land.  Today is OUR birthday.

This day gives us time to reflect on who we are collectively; it gives us time to reflect on just how far we, a ragtag bunch of settlers, slaves and later immigrants, have come; and above all, it gives us time to give thanks for the fact that, after 231 long and turbulent years, we are still here.

Bullshit. I call Bullshit.  

Why do elected Democrats act so freaking clueless?  Not only do they continue to call it the "Iraq War" instead of the "the Occupation", they apparently can't even figure out how to make clear that THEY NEVER AUTHORIZED A WAR IN THE FIRST PLACE.  

Dems never voted for the war.  Do you hear that, Harry Reid?  Nancy Pelosi?  Rahm Emmanuel?  Let me say it again: You people never voted for a war in Iraq.  Not even close.

Can't we all just get along?

I know that many in this community have problems with the Orange Place.  I understand that.  I respect that.

What is happening over at the Orange Place is a story no different from that of every other major organization and movement from time immemorial: the institutionalization of charisma.  Read all about it in the writings of Max Weber, founder of modern sociology: a movement starts with an almost anything-goes charismatic energy and attracts attention and followers.  Then, due to its size and prominence, it begins to establish institutional structures and ideological orthodoxies wherein heterodoxies are shunned.

All of this is absolutely inevitable--but that doesn't make the venomous attacks on the Orange Place here just or right.