It's over. Maybe Hillary doesn't know it yet. Almost assuredly Bill doesn't. But it's over.

And, no, I don't just mean the Democratic presidential nomination process. I mean the whole shootin' match. Obama is the nominee and Obama is the forty-fourth president of the United States. You heard it here first.

Sure, it's possible for this thing to derail, not least because of an October Surprise abroad engineered by Dick Cheney to keep himself out of jail. But, short of that, fughedaboudit! And even that most despicable of classic political ploys may not work anymore. If anything, the Reverend Wright episode has demonstrated that the historically immature American electorate night just be angry and desperate enough not to be distracted this time by the latest Willie Horton ad or gay marriage spectacle. There are powerful signs that the old black magic doesn't work anymore.

John McCain has to be the luckiest politician in human history.

He doesn’t have the presidency in his grasp yet, but he is within spitting distance, and that alone is an astonishing fact.

There is no way, for starters, that McCain should ever have won the Republican nomination he is about to. For all his horrible politics, he is perceived by the sundry Klingons and Borg who make up the voting ranks of his party as insufficiently insane to be a true-blue (true-red?) believer in the full creed of Jesus, money and violence (not necessarily in that order of importance, of course). After all, he hasn’t personally invaded a country yet (unless you count his blasting Vietnamese peasants into obliteration when he actually served in the military – which somehow doesn’t seem to matter to these folks except when Democrats don’t do it). And, since he politely wipes the blood off his chin when he eats his red meat, he is apparently too civilized to be president for those who think George W. Bush is one of history’s greats.

Imagine, if you can, that the situation was reversed.

Imagine that Hillary Clinton had a prohibitive lead in the race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. Imagine that just about everything was trending her way - money, votes, public support, momentum and superdelegates. Imagine that for her opponent, Barack Obama, to remain in the race would only have the effect of dragging down the chances that Clinton and the Democratic Party could win the presidency in what should be a slam-dunk election against reviled Republicans.

Now ask yourself two questions: Would Obama stay in the race in this situation? And, would he be allowed by other Democrats to stay in, or even by the progressive grassroots?

Barack Obama did it again!

He told the truth. Jesus Christ, when is somebody gonna get to this guy and teach him the rules of American politics?

Dude, it goes like this: We're bringing democracy to the Middle East. Tax cuts for the obscenely wealthy are to stimulate the economy. George Bush is more patriotic than Al Gore. Our government is there to serve the people. America is always a force for good in the world. There is a god, he is a nice fatherly-looking Caucasian fellow with a big snowy beard (if the resemblance to the god of American children - Santa Claus - doesn't by itself tell you everything you need to know about religion, you're still not paying attention!). And he's quite angry at Muslims and other people who didn't get the memo on who to worship.

Seeing John McCain and David Petraeus talking about the Iraq debacle this week is a frightening reminder of how easily we Americans are able to slip into war. And how frequently we do. And how hard it is to get out once we're in. Assuming, of course, we even want to get out.

Recently, I catalogued the unfortunately ample, and the amply unfortunate, evidence that America has a serious jones for war. It would be nice if this were not so. Then again, it would be nice if George W. Bush was not sitting in the White House right now, too. But sometimes you just have to face difficult truths, no matter how unpleasant they are, and both of these are, verdad, muy mal.

One of the most astonishing facts about the Bush presidency is simply that it continues to exist.

Only a combination of certain critical conditions have kept the man and his government from suffering the same fate as Mussolini or Ceaucesceu. A politically naive public, a neutered opposition, a compliant press, a Constitutionally-fixed term of office, a truckload of fear, a moderately sufficient economy and a remotely plausible victory in an unpopular war have all conspired to encourage a surly public to simply wait out the clock for the demise of the Creature from Crawford.

Now, however, both of those last two factors are imploding. The Bush administration is consistently on the wrong side of (repeated) history, and more pressure is riding on the other remaining factors – especially the knowledge that these fools are required to leave, regardless, in nine months time – to keep the dam from bursting.

If there's anything I've learned about American politics over the past decade, it's this: First, regressives will do anything - and I mean anything - to obtain power (the real purpose of which is to loot the public fisc of all items not securely nailed to the floor). And, second, just about everything they try works when employed against an American public possessed of stunning political immaturity.

It comes as little surprise, therefore, that two things happened over the last couple of weeks. One, that Barack Obama was swiftboated by means of a bogus inference in order to make him look like an angry black radical. And two, that a lot of dumb voters went for it.

Watching George W. Bush in operation these last couple of weeks is like having an out-of-body experience. On acid. During a nightmare. In a different galaxy.

As he presides over the latest disaster of his administration (No, it's not a terrorist attack - that was 2001! No, it's not a catastrophic war - that was 2003! No, it's not a drowning city - that was 2005! This one is an economic meltdown, ladies and gentlemen!) bringing to it the same blithe disengagement with which he's attended the previous ones, you cannot but stop and gaze in stark comedic awe, realizing that the most powerful polity that ever existed on the planet twice picked this imbecilic buffoon as its leader, from among 300 million other choices. Seeing him clown with the Washington press corps yet once again - and seeing them fawn over him, laugh in all the right places, and give him a standing ovation, also yet once again - is the equivalent of having all your logic circuits blown simultaneously. Truly, the universe has a twisted and deeply ironic sense of humor. Monty Python is about as funny - and as stiff - as Dick Nixon, by comparison.

Some people think hypocrisy is not a sin in politics. Indeed, some people think one is so integral to the other that they can't imagine what would be left if you took the hypocrisy out of politics.

I'm not one of them. In fact, I'd have to say that I think hypocrisy is one of the greater political crimes. Not because I particularly think that politicians are more upstanding than the rest of the public, though I wish they were.

The reason that I find hypocrisy in politics to be particularly offensive is because it inherently implies a double-standard. It means that there is one morality for elites, and a whole other one for the rest of us chumps.

Oh boy. Where have I seen this movie before?

I think it was four years, surprisingly enough. Hey, what a coincidence! Wasn't there a presidential election going on back then, too?

Remember how Howard Dean came out of near total obscurity, how he started walloping the presumptive front-runner, John "Fearless" Kerry, by taking bold positions (at least in the context of American politics) against the war, and against George W. Bush? Remember how Kerry changed his tune to ape Dean's message, and how nervous Democratic voters played it safe and came home to the guy with the experience and the name brand? Remember what an outstandingly effective candidate he then turned out to be? Remember the "real deal"? (Oh, and what a deal it was. I think experienced card players refer to that hand as a 'jack-shit straight, seven high', if I'm not mistaken.)

William F. Buckley was a smart man, that's for sure.

He could throw around more ten dollar words than his beloved Catholic church has sinners (even excluding the priesthood). He knew all the right places to ski and the proper wines to drink while listening to this concerto or appreciating that symphony. A product of privilege right down to the French boarding schools he attended, Buckley was as sophisticated, erudite and insightful as they come.

Except on the subject of politics, that is - which just happened to be his life's great work.

And aren't we lucky for it?

Buckley is often credited with being the father of the modern conservatism (pardon the oxymoron) in America. It is said that before he founded the National Review in 1955, there essentially was no such movement in the country. It is said (no less than by Reagan himself), that the line is drawn directly from Buckley to Goldwater to Reagan. (For some completely inexplicable reason, conservatives usually leave off Gingrich and Bush the Younger from that genealogy.)

Hey, I thought you needed two people to play good-cop/bad-cop.

I know that the Clinton presidential campaign has had to cut back a lot lately on its former lavish expenditures, but they might want to consider that having her play both roles at once is something of a false economy.

It is, in any case, dizzying. Not only is it hard to tell which cop is going to show up at a given event these days, but sometimes you sit in anticipation wondering which one will show at up at a given moment during an event they both seem to be attending. Will it be nice Hillary good-cop, who mists over in New Hampshire or is honored to share the stage with the literal bane of her existence in Texas? Or will it be the tight-lipped, head-cocked, ferocious bad-cop of Rhode Island, spewing nasty bits of sarcasm that sink to the ground faster than a lead balloon, complete with audience groans for a soundtrack?

"Outside I hear the ground shaking
Up from underneath
It's only when the empire's breaking
That you see their teeth"
-- Al Stewart, "Rain Barrel"

Americans love to think that we're a peaceful people, and that we fight wars only when we must.

Unfortunately, you can count in nanoseconds how long those assertions hold up when exposed to such insidious commie dirty tricks as the application of logic or the examination of empirical history.

Sure, any war can be spun as some necessity against some Very Bad Person, preferably of brown skin, slanted eyes and/or differing deity. Not only can any war be so spun, probably every war there ever was has been, at least since the days when governments had to start offering some justification or another for their little foreign adventures.

American politics sucks, doesn't it?

C'mon, face it - you know it does. You know 'cause you've experienced it your whole life. You (and I) have made a career out of sitting there watching in helpless astonishment as dweebs like Mike Dukakis and John Kerry stood by hopelessly looking on in election after election, while crypto-fascist punks like Dick Nixon and Little Bush handed them their lunch. Only then to go on and rack up nearly as much damage in the world as imaginable, while using hate and divisiveness to maintain support at home. Right?

Your whole life teaches you that to be a progressive in America is to make Sisyphus look like a slacker. Hey, at least he got to the top of the mountain once in a while! Even if it was all for naught, that's still a lot more than we've been getting across the better part of a lifetime. Right?

Suppose you had a political party you were trying to get rid of. How would you do it?

Would you give it some cement shoes and toss it into the bay? Would you roll it up in a carpet and drag it into the trunk of your car in the middle of the night? Would you put out a contract on it?

If the latter sounds appealing, no need to get your hands dirty messing with any nasty mob guys from Jersey. I know some very upstanding establishment folks who've perfected a killer formula (pun intended) for particide. They're called Democrats, and they know how to get the job done right.

In fact, they've demonstrated it again for the umpteenth time just as I'm writing these words. Yesterday, that tough guy Harry Reid laid down the law for congressional Republicans thinking he wouldn't play hardball on the much-needed economic stimulus package now working its way through Congress. He told them: "Well, I think that if they think this is a bluff, wait until we have this vote and they'll find out if it's a bluff. I'm not much of a bluffer." Then, today, he completely caved into their pressure on the bill, proving - though perhaps not quite in the manner he intended - that he is in fact not much of a bluffer, after all, even if he is from Nevada. Nor, as it turns out, is he much of a negotiator either.

My god, I loathe the Clintons.

The idea of Clinton redux gives me acid reflux. The idea of Clinton duplex gives me Clinton reflux. Look out - I really feel the need to hurl.

And (almost) never more than during the last weeks. Since the days just preceding the New Hampshire primary these two have been insufferable. Nothing brings out their worst behavior than having their little personal joyride at the national expense threatened by the rest of us trying to grab back the keys to the battered car.

Wanna know how much these two sicken me? They've gotten me to stop thinking lately about how much the little punk in the White House sickens me. That's how much.

What a ding-dong I am!

For months - nay, years! - I've been ranting about how screwed up the war in Iraq has been, and how disastrous have been its consequences.

What a fool I've been! In reality, it's actually turned out pretty great.

That's what I learned when I read William Kristol's recent New York Times piece, "The Democrats' Fairy Tale." In a stroke of thoughtfulness, generosity and uncanny prescience, the Times was kind enough recently to hire Kristol to write a regular column for their op-ed page. I guess that's because Ariel Sharon was unavailable and David Duke was on vacation.

One of the greatest deficiencies of American democracy - such as it is nowadays - is the near complete lack of accountability to which elected and selected officials are subjected.

There are other problems, to be sure, but the degree to which these folks can insulate themselves from the concerns and demands of their constituents is among the truly worst aspects of the way we now practice governance in this country.

The Bush administration has - surprise! - refined this insularity to - shock! - a fine art, with its secrecy, arrogance and defiance of Congressional oversight. There are endless examples of their use of raw power and pure cheekiness to avoid the people whom they're supposed to be serving. Of all their tricks, though, my very favorite was how they campaigned in 2004. You remember, don't you, back before the empire, when campaigns were about winning over undecided voters? Not with these guys. Rove made damn sure that Bush never encountered such a creature throughout the entire campaign. You literally had to be a Bush/Cheney campaign volunteer to get into events. And if you somehow got a ticket but showed up wearing the wrong t-shirt or having the wrong bumper-sticker on your car, the Secret Service literally arrested you. Some democracy, eh? Heck, even the last remaining samples of smallpox virus aren't that insulated from contact with the world.

Anybody up for some change?

That's the operative word in American politics this week. Of course, change can mean a whole lot of different things. Loose change. Chump change. Change of heart. Quick change artist. Change of underwear.

And, really, it's not at all clear what it means in this context – or more importantly, if it really means anything at all. It's more than a little probable that a whole bunch of grossly over-priced Bob Shrum types looked at what happened in Iowa and arrived at the same brilliant conclusion that any alert eighth-grader could have provided for the price of a skateboard rather than a McLean McMansion. Namely, that the American public is unhappy, and is looking for something different. You don't need a graduate education or a consulting license to figure that one out.

America would be a lot better place if it had an opposition party. That’s how democracies are supposed to work, after all.

Oh. What’s that you say? We already have one, called the Democratic Party? Gosh, I didn’t notice. I’ve been watching them this last couple of decades and I long ago concluded that their job must be to assist the Republican Party in running the country into the ground. Guess I missed something, somewhere. Like maybe that whole opposition part of being the opposition party.

I have recently been engaged in the process of ‘debating’ politics online in a circle of email correspondents – some progressive, some regressive – that I fell into somehow. Boy, has that been an education, particularly concerning the tools employed by the Dark Side to fight their otherwise completely hopeless policy battles.

I write articles each week with titles like "Everything I Need to Know About the Regressive Right I Learned In Junior High", or "Conservatism Is Politics For Kindergartners", or "Schadenfreude Is My Middle Name".

I regret doing so very much. Believe it or not, I really don't like spewing venom, sarcasm and rage all over my computer keyboard.

I particularly don't like it because I have friends who are conservative, and it's not my nature to trash-talk anybody, let alone friends.

Indeed, none of this is in my nature. I don't start fights and I don't go looking for them. I'm not an angry, bitter or mean-spirited person. But I can understand how I might be seen as such in the absence of the appropriate context, and it truly chagrins me that I might be so misperceived, and so negatively.

Regressive conservatives aren't really so hard to figure out. You just need to know the key.

It's junior high.

Remember those delightful years of comity and enlightenment, comradeship, maturity and social inclusiveness?

Yeah, me neither.

For most folks, those junior high years might as well have been a Wes Craven movie, full of Freddies and Jasons and metaphorical (not to mention the occasional actual) chain-saw murderers. And why wouldn't they be? Throw a bunch of incredibly immature kids together into a big building, pump them up full of raging hormones and self-centered, consumer-driven, amped-up, self-absorbed me-ism, and see what happens. No need to even light a match.

The last time the American public was so disenchanted with the state of national politics, there was a war going on and near civil war at home.

Indeed, so surly is the current public mood about the country being on the wrong track that you'd almost think there is a war going on now! But, of course, since there's no draft, no tax increase, and no pictures of battle, or of bodies coming back to Dover Air Force Base, I'm sure I must be mistaken about that.

So what gives? Why are people so dissatisfied, telling pollsters in record numbers that the country has gone astray?

There's a simple answer, but the regressive right is desperate that you not hear it or think about it. You see, there's been an ideological revolution going on in America. It began in the 1980s with Reagan kleptocracy (in that sense, it's been a bit of an evolutionary revolution - however oxymoronic (or just plain moronic) that idea may be), but has really hit stride in the seven tortuous years of the Little Bush regime.

Most Americans have long ago now reached two conclusions about their government. First, that George W. Bush is an incompetent president with, additionally, a temperament ill-suited to the job. And second, that his grand project - the invasion of Iraq - was a major mistake.

Both these conclusions are absolutely incorrect. But only by omission. They are, in fact, quite accurate as far as they go - it's just that they don't go nearly far enough.

Bush is incompetent and Iraq is likely the greatest foreign policy blunder in two-plus centuries of American history. But to say that - and particularly to say that alone - does not truly do justice to either disaster, Bush or his war. The truth about this president and his motives for war are far, far uglier than the words 'incompetence' or 'mistake' imply.

So the surge is working, eh?

Well, maybe, though you'd be a fool to necessarily believe it, especially coming from such reliable sources as the Bush administration and the American media. It's not like they actually ever got any single thing about this war right. Ever.

For the quality of media reporting we've been getting - from WMD hype to the Downing Street Memos to election theft - these guys might as well have been on a different planet. What does it tell you about the state of the media in your country when people have to rely on foreign sources to get a remotely accurate account of the news? Can you say 'Pravda'?