It's become borderline amusing, though I scurry to stress the borderline angle. We have in the White House either a dangerous moron or a heinous liar, or perhaps he's even a twofer. And that seems to be the Great Debate of Era: Is our president an epic halfwit, or Nixon squared, or some fantastic combination of the two not seen since Nero? Yet whichever of those limited possibilities his character happens to be, the joke's on us.

A pathological presidential liar, or an idiot-in-chief. It is the nightmare scenario of political science fiction: A critical juncture in our history and, contained in either answer, a president manifestly unfit to serve, and behind him in the vice presidency: an unapologetic war-monger who has long been seeing a world visible only to himself.

The chances that President Bush will fundamentally change his policy toward Iran, even in light of the latest NIE, seem slim. Regrettably, opposition Democrats are not defining a genuine alternative. Beyond criticism of President Bush's "saber rattling," Democratic presidential candidates offer, for the most part, only vacuous rhetoric about "engaging" Iran. But are Democrats prepared to endorse negotiations with Iran, even if Tehran has not resumed suspension of its nuclear activities? More important, are Democrats willing to offer security guarantees to the Islamic Republic, as part of a negotiated settlement of bilateral differences? Among Democratic presidential candidates, only Barack Obama has indicated that he might be prepared to go that far, and even he has not been willing to argue consistently for a fundamental reorientation of America's Iran policy.

Yet this is precisely what the situation requires: a reorientation of US policy toward the Islamic Republic as profound as the one with US policy toward China effected by President Nixon in the early 1970s.

There is no shortage of speculation about "why" our leaders are still adamantly planning for the destruction of Iran, in the face of overwhelming popular opposition, even though everyone except the neocons and their allies believes that America would not survive our own actions. An irrational attack is planned and apparently the decision has been chiseled in stone.

Many of us have watched the Bush regime’s actions with a growing feeling of horror intertwined with a sense that somehow we’ve seen all of this before, but we aren’t sure where. We’re confused because what we’re seeing conflicts with unexamined and deeply held assumptions we have about American freedom. Wolf’s short but meticulously documented book shows that what is happening in America has indeed happened many times before, not in the United States, but rather in places like Chile, Italy, Russia, and Germany. In each case, people couldn’t understand why they didn’t recognize where they were heading before they passed the point of no return.

There I was, calmly enjoying some Thanksgiving leftovers and offering some divine gratitude for this truly fine '04 Pinot when suddenly boom, there was God, right across the table, helping Himself to some stuffing and the choicest hunks of dark meat, which He totally knows is my favorite. Clearly, He wanted my attention.

"Oh hey, it's you," I said, feigning nonchalance, as if this sort of thing happens to me every day (I always like to throw God off a bit, given how He's so accustomed to those melodramatic, fall-to-your-knees-in-terror reactions He always gets from the nutball evangelicals whenever He swings through their nightmares in his classic fire/brimstone persona. That always cracks Him up). "What's up?"

Romney says he should be President because he's "Christian," but that it's unfair to ask him to explain what he means by that.

Here's the scariest thing Mitt Romney could have said today in his grand and mighty don't-fear-the-Mormon speech: "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone." The funny thing is that he really said that. Remember: Mitt Romney believes that freedom leads one to commune with God. Not your neighbor. Not your community. Not your nation. Nope, it's all about God. The whole pathetic speech was such a pander to the religious right that you wondered if the invisible sky wizard himself didn't open his purple star-encrusted robes and told Romney, "Suck it. And you better be good."