"The social policy advisors Obama has picked are leaders in the abortion business and honchos of the homosexual lobby. They aim to remake the U.S. in their own image. If they succeed, the entire U.S. will look like Greenwich Village during the Halloween parade, dog collars and all."

WingNutDaily.com is promoting a book by an alleged psychiatrist, Dr. Lyle Rossiter, titled "The Liberal Mind:  The Psychological Causes of Political Madness".   He compares liberals to spoiled, angry children who rebel against the normal responsibilities of adulthood and demand that a parental government meet their needs from cradle to grave. 

"The roots of liberalism - and its associated madness - can be clearly identified by understanding how children develop from infancy to adulthood and how distorted development produces the irrational beliefs of the liberal mind.   When the modern liberal mind whines about imaginary victims, rages against imaginary villains and seeks above all else to run the lives of persons competent to run their own lives, the neurosis of the liberal mind becomes painfully obvious."

  God is his running mate:   Pastor Wiley Drake is spiritual leader of the First Southern Baptist Church near Los Angeles.  He is also the vice-presidential running mate of Alan Keyes, who is on the ballot in California as the presidential nominee of the American Independent Party.   He is challenging the IRS code which prohibits pastors from making political endorsements from the pulpit.   "According to my Bible and in my opinion, there is no way in the world a Christian can vote for Barack Hussein Obama," Drake said. "Mr. Obama is not standing up for anything that is tradition in America."   He urged his congregation to vote for him and his running mate, and to pray for the success of the American Independent Party.   He also proclaimed,  "I am angry because the government and the IRS and some Christians have taken away the rights of pastors," Drake said to about 45 people at his service.  "I have a right to endorse anybody I doggone well please. And if they don't like that, too bad."   I suspect the good pastor will quickly find out the IRS can take away tax-exempt status from anybody they doggone well please too.

OK, so Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg is not a whale but he does have white hair and it seems his political opponent, Washington DC lawyer-lobbyist-turned-GOP Senate candidate Dick Zimmer, is doing his best Ahab impression desperately seeking a confrontation.  Zimmer, who has fallen so low in the polls you need a high-resolution microscope to gauge his support, has begun his quest by going to diners throughout the state asking patrons if they've seen the White Whale.   “A number of newspaper editorials have asked, ‘Where is Senator Lautenberg hiding?’  I intend to help find our missing Senator by handing out missing-person flyers at diners throughout New Jersey,” said Zimmer.   A spokesperson for Lautenberg said Zimmer should steer a course for Washington DC.  “Frank Lautenberg’s busy in Washington working on the financial bailout package,” she said.  “As much as he’d like to meet Dick Zimmer in diners, there are more pressing issues for Frank Lautenberg to be worried about right now.”   I guess it's better to meet Dick Zimmer in diners than some of the rest stops on the New Jersey Turnpike.

The nation's body politic holds its collective breath anxiously awaiting the expected announcement on April 15 by Dr. Alan Keyes that he bids a not-so-fond farewell to the Reputzlican Party to run for President as the Constitution Party candidate.  The assumption here is that the anally retentive Constipation Party will gratefully hand its party line on a sliver-plated bible to the bilious blowhard at its national convention on April 23.  However, recent conversations on several relevant discussion boards leads one to believe the Keyester may not have such an easy time gaining the nomination, especially if veteran CP activists have their way.

Constipation Party leaders are receptive to a Keyes candidacy because they believe it will draw media attention, new members and most important of all, more money to pay their salaries and other expenses.  Grassroots activists, who don't need to dirty their hands with monetary matters, are not so easy to please. Specifically, they are upset with the Keyester's enthusiastic support for neocon wars and foreign entanglements.  Historically the Constipationalists, whose concept of liberty entails returning America to a time when the Constitution legitimized slavery, ethnic cleansing and female disfranchisement, have promoted a paleoconservative-isolationist view of the world.  More recently their position on most issues closely resembles the presidential campaigns of Pat Buchanan in 1992, 1996 and 2000.  It's a reasonable guess that many CP members are frustrated veterans of the Buchanan Brigades, the "peasants with pitchforks" who terrorized the GOP establishment with their win in the 1996 New Hampshire primary.

Of main concern to Democrats is whether the CP, with the third largest number of registered voters in the country, can pick off enough votes from the GOP ticket to make a difference in enough states.  In Florida, for instance, there may be enough upstate "hick votes" for a CP candidate to swing that state from red to blue.  If the Keyester heads the CP ticket they have a better chance to do that than they would with their previous nominees, notably Howard Phillips, who generated about as much enthusiasm as Tom Tancredo at a Cinco de Mayo party.  But indications are that "Buchananballers" and other CP purists, who oppose the Keyester's advocacy of neocon imperialism, will not pack up their guns and their bibles and go quietly into the political sunset.

Alan Keyes informed supporters this week he is leaving the GOP and will join the Constitution Party to campaign for the presidential nomination at its national convention on April 23.  He will be holding a press conference in Hazleton, Pennsylvania on April 15 to officially announce his intentions.   For those of us entertained by the unstoppable blowhard's shenanigans and unintended witticisms, this is great news.  We can look forward especially for the Keyester to make an amusing nuisance of himself in the Fall when he tries to participate in the Republicrat debates (he may try to get himself arrested for trespassing at a debate which happened in 1996 the first time he ran for president).   For John McCain he'll have to sweat waiting to see what reactionary bible-thumpers like James Dobson will do.  The latter has said he'll never support McCain, so Keyes might be his only alternative.  It's a sure bet some of the "values voters", the Taliban wing of the GOP, may desert McCain for Keyes at the ballot box in enough states like Florida where the final result may hinge on just a few hundred votes.

McCain struggles for support in the Bible Belt:  At the  National Religious Broadcasters Convention meeting this week in Nashville, Tennessee, reactionary evangelicals continue playing hard-to-get for John McCain.  Wingnut James Dobson, who refuses to endorse McCain, will address the convention on Tuesday.  Tennessee GOP chairwoman Robin Smith believes The Faithful will eventually rally around McCain because, as she puts it,

"On issues of abortion, gay marriage, and support for Israel, McCain and evangelicals see eye to eye, and that evangelicals who are disappointed with McCain have to choose between sitting on their hands on the sidelines or standing up for Christian principles and being the salt of the earth."

  So what are the rest of us supposed to be, jalapenos?

Mike Huckabee's celebrity mouthpiece, Chuck Norris, is
extolling the virtues of having a First Lady who can hunt rattlesnakes and fire a grenade launcher.  According to the Karate Killer, "Janet (Huckabee) always has loved the outdoors and taking physical risks. She has sky-dived with the Golden Knights, landed in an F-18 on an aircraft carrier, bungee jumped, hunted rattlesnakes and bears, completed two marathons, and fired a grenade launcher -- hitting the target two out of three times. She even earned a place in the Arkansas Outdoor Hall of Fame by riding a jet ski down the entire Arkansas River. Her love for adventure is one reason Janet was nicknamed the "first tomboy" of Arkansas."  In addition to her numerous daredevil accomplishments, Norris cites Janet Huckabee's academic achievements such as attending Ouachita Baptist University and graduating with honors in organizational management from John Brown University.

Now let's see if Bill Clinton, Michelle Obama or Cindy McCain can do bungee jumping.

Alan Keyes wants the world to know he is still a presidential candidate and plans to make a last stand against John McCain in the land of the Alamo on March 4.  Last week he spoke at the Texas A&M College Republicans meeting.  "I feel sorry for you young folks," he said. "Where this country is headed is a place that leaves me wondering, by the time you're my age, I wonder whether you will still be living in a free country, or whether you're still living in a republic right now."   The Keyester spoke about the state of liberty in America. He said that nothing like the United States had existed before in the history of humanity. He contrasted governments of dictators scoffing at the common man - where, he said, some people counted for everything and others for nothing. The difference, Keyes said, lays in the Declaration of Independence, where it explicitly states certain inalienable rights endowed to us by our Creator and none other.

The problem is that if Alan Keyes has his way he'll return America to the time of the Declaration; women were disenfranchised, Africans were slaves, Natives were driven from their homes or exterminated, and Presidents were elected by an Electoral College consisting of political hacks appointed by state legislatures comprised of propertied white males.   Some Republic.
       

It seems unlikely an anarchist like myself would step into a voting booth and vote a straight Democratic ticket. A lot of unlikely things have happened the last few years. The World Trade Center came tumbling down, the world's only superpower was brought to its knees by nineteen suicidal maniacs armed with nothing more than scissors and boxcutters, and otherwise rational Americans began to think that maybe we did have something to fear more than fear itself. After several months of watching Americans whipped into a jingoistic frenzy by an unscrupulous media and opportunistic politicians, I was beginning to feel like the spaceman character in the cold war era science fiction movie "The Day The Earth Stood Still". The humanoid spaceman was observing undercover how people reacted to seeing his spaceship. A radio announcer was conducting random interviews, and one after another expressed the same fear and hostility at being invaded. When the interviewer approached the spaceman and asked him if he was afraid the spaceman responded, "I am afraid, but not for the same reason. I am afraid when I see people substitute fear for reason . . . ." The interviewer politely cuts him off, evidently because rational analysis does not attract an audience as much as fear and hostility.

With Rush Limbaugh's Chickenhawk Brigade leading the charge, and Fox News cheerleading on the sidelines, America's Heroes invaded Iraq in a futile search for weapons of mass destruction. Like King Kong stomping on the native village in a desperate attempt to find his blonde beauty, our Heroes subsequently plunged Iraq into a bloody civil war that cost the lives of more than 150,000 people. At the same time their actions have engendered so much hatred and hostility as to make me feel less secure about the safety of my family. I believe in democracy there are no innocent civilians. Even the ones that don't vote and don't pay taxes can suffer the same fate as those who do. For example, hundreds of people killed at the World Trade Center were citizens of other nations.

My disinclination to participate in a corrupt political process was overcome by evidence that a majority of the ruling political party was supportive of war, and the erosion of civil liberties, that was opposed by a majority of the opposition party. I had a choice between nonvoting, or choosing to vote for the lesser of two evils. I decided that the Republican warfare state was sufficiently more evil than the Democratic welfare state to justify my vote for the latter.

There were two reasons that motivated me to change my mind about voting. One was the humane imperative of saving lives. I don't expect a Democratic-controlled Congress to have any immediate impact on casualties in Iraq, but it may be an incentive for the Bush administration to withdraw troops sooner rather than later. I also expect Bush to come under increasing pressure from leaders within his own party to clean up the mess he made in Iraq before the next presidential election.

I have not deluded myself into thinking that Democrats are pacifists. With the exception of the Cold War and Vietnam, Democrats often supported military intervention in other nations while Republicans tended toward isolation. Bill Clinton's disastrous Somalian campaign, and the air war in the Balkans a few years later, are examples. However, Bill Clinton had sense enough to get out of Somalia, rather than "stay the course", when it became apparent events were not going according to plan. In the Balkans the US played a supportive role behind other European countries. Though Serbians suffered significant casualties, they were small compared to the bloodbath in Iraq. I am also well aware that a large number of Democrats initially supported the war in Iraq, obviously trying to have it both ways politically. However, as Ned Lamont's victory over "Fighting Joe" Lieberman in the Connecticut primary illustrates, the antiwar Democrats have more clout than the isolationist Republicans within their respective parties.

I also believe that if Al Gore was president there would be no war in Iraq. Al Gore could not have prevented the attacks on September 11, but there would not have been a neoconservative cabal in his administration which exploited the tragedy to advance their own imperialist agenda. To put this in perspective, I voted in this year's election because of my belief that if a few hundred "alte cockers" in Palm Beach County had kept their wits when they voted in the 2000 election, hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq and elsewhere would be alive today.

Another compelling reason to vote for Democrats was punitive. I strongly believe that the party which started and promoted the war should be made to suffer for its actions. This will also have a deterrent effect throughout the world. Leaders in democratic societies will have to think twice before embarking on imperialistic adventures. Elections in Spain, Italy and England have put politicians in other countries on notice that they cannot shed their nation's blood and squander their treasure with impunity. In this country neoconservative chickenhawks have been so thoroughly discredited that even Republican presidential aspirants would be loath to associate with them or their policies. Ironically, a magazine called The American Conservative contains an article