The Doc never lied.

He let his Id off its leash, let it take Master classes in peyote-stoked Impressionism, let it go brilliantly mad with a typewriter and called it “Gonzo”, but he never lied.

And in an alternate Universe where the Doc lives on, Jason Leopold’s head would be handsomely mounted above Hunter’s mantle, and his ribcage and pelvic girdle would be the structural members for one hell of a hookah out at Woody Creek.

So lets talk about the Rove Thing.

I had hoped this vile little puppycrusher would be perp-walked out of his black-ops demesnes. That the feds would raid his Sith lab in the basement of the White House where he spends endless hours perfecting the dark art of keeping the nation divided and hateful with the precision of an atom splitter, and move him over to the graybar world of orange jumpsuits and doors that lock from the outside.

Might still happen. Might not. But I wanted it, it didn’t happen, so there you go.

It was a sideshow. An important one to be sure, but not the center ring, and shame on me for all the talking I do about the slow, steady, frustrating pace at which fundamental change always happens to put any stock in a silver bullet.

Hell, wee driftglass that I was, I wanted Nixon and all of his pinstriped henchmen to go down in a hail of gunfire “Butch Cassidy”-style as the FBI stormed the Oval Office. Or at least paraded naked in a cage down the main street of every village, hamlet, city and town that lost a son or daughter in Vietnam on his watch.

Also Helen Gahagan Douglas should have gotten three free cockpunches with a ball peen hammer.

But I didn’t get that.

Instead I got to see him resign in disgrace, after which the country got drowsy and inattentive and nodded off, only wake up in the 21st century wonder how in the hell a feebleminded creep and a posse of anti-science theocrats had managed to take over an advanced industrial democracy at the dawn of the information age.

And the answer is simple: they wanted it more.

They were willing to stay on message, en masse, year after year. They were willing to shrug off defeat and get back in the game.

They were willing try and fail and try again.

And while they were laughed at and mocked, every year they got stronger at the grass roots. They ran for school board and city council, and forced their agenda in through the cracks. This is why Dean’s 50 State Strategy makes long term sense. This is why people (DLC) who perceive of power as something seated in and radiating outward and downward from Washington D.C. mock and fear insurgency campaigns, bloggers and so forth.

Because it’s messy, andthe boss (that’d be us) is very exacting: either you serve your constituents or out on your ass you go-go-go.

This kind of arrangement does not afford the consulting, triangulating, poll-testing caste with much job security. And this is why they will always be at loggerheads with those of us that think of D.C. not as a source of power, but simply as its focus. A place where our massed might gets lensed into action on the matters we deem most important.

If you occasionally get all sweary and pissed when things get to tough, that’s fine. We all do. Take a break, go have a Dr. Pepper, and come back when you’re rested. But if you fall apart after each defeat, this is not the fight for you.

Which leads us to “t r u t h o u t” and Jason Leopold.

Because in the face of setback and frustration, it is terribly tempting to posit sekrit unknowable external factors that render your otherwise patently ludicrous ideas “true”. Your truth is, in fact, more truthy than mere truth because it just feels sooo right.

(Insert Barry White crooning “oooooh baby.”)

Unfortunately that cuts zero ice in the Real World.

See, while I will zealously argue for anyone’s “if it feels good, do it” rights, so long as those rights are within the clear circumscription of consent and victimlessness and I don't have to clean the joint up after you, I have no such pity for the idea of, “If it feels good, believe it.”

(I say this as I wait here, patiently, for Lucy Liu to show up on my doorstep in naught but heels and a smile, freely admitting that I can be as guilty of wishful thinkingness as anyone. We're all sinners here, which is why it's so important to keep each other honest.)

Because down that road lies madness. Down there you find the whole San Diego Zoo of wingnut idiocy, from Jerry Falwell to David Brooks, both of whom chucked Occam's razor into the industrial iron masher years ago and instead delight in ascribing thier own suite of Magic Powers to the Dear Leader. Secret Invisible Attributes that somehow redeem his every gaff, blunder, lie and war crime by ascribing to each of them special, spiritual significance.

That can only be understood within a larger context.

Which only they can dimly perceive.

And only using specially treated, GOP X-Ray glasses.

Of course anyone outside the BlunderDome, from a savvy eight-year-old to a mental health professional, can see it for what it is: more radically delusional stupidity from the poor Persecuted Majority.

Bush/Cheney, plus a compliant Congress and a Vaseline-spined press, plus the moral, fiscal and military blank check handed to them on 9/11 was everything short of the repeal of the Emancipation Proclamation they ever wished for. It was their Conservative Wet Dream Come True, and now it's a dream from which the dare not awaken lest their heads explode like 20 million Coelacanths in Low Earth Orbit.

Instead their Beautiful Minds scuttle deeper into denial and darkness, eyes clamped tighter and tighter shut, navigating now only by the virtual light of their own retinal flashes. And in this cave within a cave within an abyss, they tell themselves they see miraculous patterns everywhere, that explain everything.

Their own Duh’Vinci Code spun up out of whole cloth impelled entirely by their desperate and terrible need to be right when they are so clearly and horribly wrong.

Because like the psychotic Dominionist cult from whose diseased loins modern Conservativism springs, those that still support Bush cannot allow themselves to believe they are even a little bit wrong, because if one verse of the True Faith is wrong, then what about all the others?

Once even a smidge of doubt is allowed into their mental clean room, then everything is up for grabs, and it all starts to fly apart under the weight of its own corruption.

And they walked themselves into this circle of Hell one step at a time.

One lie, one imaginary enemy, one Comprehensive Conspiracy Theory and one enabling Hate Radio vampire at a time, because they chose to believe what felt good -- what fed their rage and bigotry and ignorance -- instead of what was true. And now there is too much at stake, and too much blood and death, too many maimed, too much debt, too much lost, too many stinking lies, too many frontal assaults on the Constitution on their heads to march themselves back and begin again with clean hands.

They went “all in” with monsters because those monsters promised them they could keep their delusions and racism and hypocrisy, and the Devil would never come for his due.

And now He is here, with an IOU a thousand miles long in his hand, and the wingnuts need someone to blame, and some Grand Confederating Theory to explain why their ludicrous ideology still makes any sense in the face of their unbroken string of failure and ruin.

And we cannot be like that, which is why, when I got this email from “t r u t h o u t” (I’m now on everyone’s mailing list. Oh joy. And sorry, but no links to sites without credibility) that read, in part,

William Fisher on immigration and educating Americans on civics; GOP rejects Democratic call for Iraq troop pullout; Specter to confront officials on Bush ignoring laws; offshore drilling bill advances in House; J. Sri Raman writes on New Delhi's silence over Nepal's regime change; and more.... Browse our continually updating front page at ...

Join fellow bloggers at the Truthout Town Meeting. Get perspectives on today's important issues from Truthout's editorial team and prominent guest bloggers. Join the debate! ...

This was my reply:

To The Editor,

Until your reporter – Jason Leopold – makes good on his solemn promise to out his sources should his Rove Indictment story prove to be wrong, please take me off of your mailing list. I will not recommend your site to my readers, nor will I visit or link to it.

You made a mistake. A big one. And your explanations as to why your story is still the “real” story get more grandiose and junkie-ridiculous each time I hear them.

Your only currency is your credibility, and right now you have none. You can repair the breach you caused and the shame you have brought on yourself by either holding Leopold to the only promise that it is within his power to keep, or by ridding yourself of a liar who has cost you your good name.

You must either take action as responsible journalists, or rebrand yourself as a conspiracy and alien-baby rag, because there is no third alternative.

Until you recover your senses and your honor, please do not bother me with any more email. I’ll only delete it.

Sincerely,

driftglass

So there you go.