In the final moments of any classic horror film, as the last ghostly images spool out on the screen, the monster at issue - Frankenstein's electric zombie, Godzilla, whatever - assumes an almost sympathetic figure. In its thrashing death throes, the scourge which had so recently stomped peasants or scorched Tokyo becomes strangely noble, tragic.

So why, as it slips down the drain of political relevance, does this phenomenon not grace the fading Republican Party?

Could it be the comic, slapstick nature of its frothy desperation?

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With sizable sections of the progressive community chafing at President Obama's rebuff of torture prosecution, the new chief executive is left to reflect that he's been allowed a honeymoon shorter than any in Dennis Hopper's serial marriages.

You know the bloom is off the rose when Keith Olbermann sizes up Obama, whom he practically canonized during the President's candidacy and post-inauguration glow, for the "Countdown" version of a firing squad - the dreaded, delicious Special Comment.

Despite some really dodgy historical interpretation (arresting the Kaiser?!), the cheerily fulminating Jeremiah of MSNBC hit the nail on the head when he accused Obama of dropping the ball on this one. The President has no excuse for shrugging this off, although doing so comes as absolutely no surprise.

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Misgivings over the Department of Homeland Security's new report profiling gun owners, illegal immigration opponents and - hmm - veterans (!) as potential fifth-column extremists have been reinforced by one of the top Congressional Democrats overseeing the controversial agency.

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The frustrations of our neo-Cold War schemata became clear this week, with news of yet another tired, phony, catch-phrase "revolution" overwhelmed by popular dissent threatening to overthrow the Georgian jefe so lionized by our unquestioning media in last summer's dust-up with Russia.

As street demonstrations entered their fifth day, both Georgian opposition and tinhorn dictator Mikhail Saakashvili vowed to stay in for the long haul, with our favorite democratic reformer of the Caucasus bravely whining, "The problem with them is that they have no leader. If you have no leader who can make the decision, then the worst radical always takes over." 

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