David Duke is not there.

Lewis Farrakhan is not there praying either.

No, he's invited Rick Warren because he represents huge political capital to Obama.

Obama has already said he is not a man given to principles in the absolutist sense; rather, that he is a Pragmatist. This may explain superficially why he would ask this virulent homophobe to the inauguration and call it a gesture of inclusion. But Obama is not asking the pragmatic question "What works?" in terms of the American collective and its common good; he is asking "What works for Obama?" This is what differentiates a Pragmatist from someone employing the self-driven and narcissistic dynamics of Realpolitik.

Obama is pandering for self-benefit, no matter what shade of lipstick he paints on this pig. He's attempting to steal the Christianist right-wing of the conservative base and he can be just as successful at this as George W. Bush. Like Bush, he doesn't even have to deliver on his domestic policy promises; he only has to appeal to these "unwashed masses" through the machinations of Straussian "Neo-Conservatism" -- "the big lie." Oh yes, he can do this with the expertise of Karl Rove; but he can never call himself ethical. By calling himself a Pragmatist, he can pretend to set aside ethics for a more "esoteric imperative," as Leo Strauss might reason. But in the final wash, Obama is just another casualty who has thrown himself at the massive wheels of the Juggernaut of the Israel Lobby.

His is the Pragmatism of Strussianism. Henry Kissinger will recognize it as Realpolitik. This inauguration, with all of Obama's conservative and New Democrat friends at the table presents an omen of things to come. Call it "change" all you want but it still sticks a rude irony in your face: "meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

With all these lobbyists sitting fat and happy at the New Democrat table, all hope is lost for the Republic.

When dealing with the ethical dilemmas that inevitably emerge where "what works?" is the guiding consideration, in a democracy one is almost always immediately confronted with the secondary question, "for whom?".

Moving beyond the rather obvious concerns regarding Obama's betrayals (such as his countless avoidances of controversial votes both in Illinois and in the U.S. Senate, his acceptance of big-money lobby support despite his promise of campaign reform, his announcement of continued support for Bush's faith-based initiatives at the same time he distanced himself -- quite pragmatically -- from his once-but-no-longer useful friend Jeremiah Wright, his turnaround on FISA and it's immunity provision for the telecom contractors operating for NSA conveniently off-shored out of Israel, his groveling outreach to AIPAC and follow-up visit to Israel, his egregious appointments of foaming-at-the-mouth neo-cons like Rham Emanuel, his reappointment of Robert Gates at Defense, and his announced intention to send a surge of 30,000 troops to Afghanistan to secure Cheney's pipelines from Central Asia while taking apart our new enemy Pakistan, to say nothing of planned troop insertions into Central Africa), we see something in Obama that is quite revealing. In his most recent use of "Pragmatism" in attempting to explain away the insult to the GLBT community after having invited the virulently anti-gay Pastor Rick Warren to deliver the convocation at his inauguration, Obama reveals the answer to the double question, "what works?" and "for whom?" -- it works for Obama. In a dilemma involving conflicts between constituencies in his voter base, conflicts that more pragmatically should have been avoided by inviting someone else to say his prayers for him, Obama reveals himself more pro-actively to be exactly what he is -- a pandering politician. To dress him up as a Pragmatist only adds another shade of lipstick to the pig.

Indicating sheer hypocrisy, Obama uses the dynamics of Realpolitik and calls it Pragmatism. It reminds one of the infamous quote from "Through the Looking Glass," by Lewis Carroll, "It's not the name of the thing that matters, it's what the name of the thing is called."

Incidentally, Henry Kissinger himself loves Obama and said so recently in a December 5th editorial to the Washington Post, praising his national security appointments.

Ironically, Mr. Aboulafia, after such an erudite article on Pragmatism, I can only suppose that you don't know pork when you see it.

In his book "Brothers," David Talbot reviews research on recently released JFK Assassination archival data that suggests Nixon's direct involvement in ordering the Watergate break-in. But Nixon was not being outrageously paranoid as we assumed for years. In fact, he was concerned about how much the Democrats' peace candidate George McGovern and his campaign staff knew about "The Kennedy Thing," as Nixon referred to it; i.e., the assassination. We've not gotten there yet, but Nixon's complicity in the assassination and coup d'etat that eventually led to his presidency is resurgent in the minds of many researchers now that they have uncovered the more realistic motivation for his paranoia. Halderman was even arrogant and stupid enough to utilize some of the same operatives of the renegade Miami Station that had participated in the coup. Nixon was at the very top of what came to be known as the Mongoose operations against Castro during the Eisenhower Administration. When the Watergate impeachment investigation began to get close to the secret coup, Nixon HAD to step down, least the entire structure of the coup be exposed, even if he was only the eventual beneficiary at the political level.

Sound insane? Keep reading the research that is becoming available as the Cold War generation passes away. George H. W. Bush's day is coming. This research is slowly sweeping out from under the carpet what the Warren Commission acted to cover up at the height of the Cold War. Now THAT was a cover-up.

If John Dean seems ignorant about the real Watergate skinny -- indeed, he is asserting Nixon's original innocence, which is laughable -- than he is either being nefariously disingenuous or extremely naive. In either case, given that he seems to have fallen into the game on innuendo surrounding Blagajevich, he's lost his credibility with this letter, if not by his having fallen in line with the Republican slime machine -- innocently or not -- then simply through his exculpatory explanation of Nixon's role in the coup's aftermath.

It seems, even the Watergate cover-up (which as it turns out was only a side-show of the assassination and coup cover-up of '63) has a self-perpetuation life of its own as it's members can't keep their mouths and their egos in check.

It's okay, John. They're not going to bury you beside Jimmie Hoffa. You can talk freely now.