Yet, attempting to grasp the logic behind the way Russia has been singled out as the new Public Enemy #1, I note a disturbing pattern of condemnation couched in creepy religo-thinking.

I fear that a substantial portion of the US population are in abject fear of having to go through cold turkey withdrawal from their long accustomed Manichean world-view, with evil so conveniently realized in concrete courtesy of GODLESS COMMUNIST-SOVIETS turned lately into Evil Russians pretending to believe in Jesus.  We had to give the Ruskies the benefit of the doubt after Gorby and Boris, and damn, that was trying!  

GWB did his best to conjure up a respectable alternative in the form of THE AXIS OF EVIL, but we knocked down or talked down all of the members except Iran.  Doing something about Iran looked too likely to make Cheney and GWB look worse than Jimmy Carter to be worth risking, but McCain looked to be in trouble in the election.

So like Merlin whispering into the ear of sleeping Morgana in Excalibur, we were able to egg on Saakashvili into an act of virtual national suicide and at once recreate the old Manichean Evil against which the Fundamentalist Christian Good could be defined and  provide a frame within which McCain could look good.  Saak chewing on his tie showed that he is finally realizing how he has been used.  

Georgia is the red meat for the Christian Right.  There may be risks, but for the Cheney wing a nuclear war might be preferable  to a Democratic victory in November.  It would also have the advantage of incinerating the books and records just when their massive looting of the economy was going to be revealed for what is has been.  Maybe that is what the Rapture looks like.  

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."