Yesterday, the military board hearing the case of Lt. Dan Choi, who told the truth about his sexual orientation on the Rachel Maddow show, moved to toss him from the military under the Don't Ask/Don't Tell policy (even though they consider him an asset to the military). Since the policy was instituted, more than 5,000 LGBT soldiers have been dismissed from service. At a time when we are fighting two (illegal, immoral) wars and with declining enlistment in America's military, this policy is not only unjust, but it is just plain stupid. For those of you who do not know the story of Dan Choi, he is a West Point graduate, an Iraq war veteran and an Arab-speaking linguist. (Jeez, think we might need this guy right now?) Here's a guy who wants to serve his country in spite of the fact that he is denied many civil rights accorded to his heterosexual counterparts. Sorry, but I have to ask the question: Do the military and Barack Obama even have a clue here? Oh, I can hear my conservative compatriots blustering now, "Well, he should have kept his mouth shut." To them I say, "I have a better idea. Let's make America the country it claims to be instead." Freedom isn't conditional here. It's not based on race, gender or sexual orientation. There are no exception clauses in the U.S. Constitution. And, by the way, we're telling those in harm's way that we're fighting for freedom. Are we really?

The LGBT community is tired of hearing about how Obama has only had six months in office. We're tired of the empty promises with no concrete actions, such as his comment earlier this week, "Gays will be happy by the end of my administration." Well, we really do not have any evidence of that. In fact, we evidence to the contrary, such as the Obama administration's memo defending the constitutionality of DOMA. It's unconstitutional. Period. We're tired of the "bipartisanship" drivel, and that's exactly what it is. We didn't elect Barack Obama to sell the country up the river in his quest to get the leftover GOP junk on board behind every change that must be made. I can assure you that the GOP would be ramming bills through with blatant disregard for bipartisanship if the situation was reversed. The people of this nation overwhelmingly elected Barack Obama because they had absolutely no faith in the GOP's plans and policies. Since Obama took office, the GOP has not offered one idea or plan to solve the country's ills. Instead, they've spent their time blocking progress and standing on their sanctimonious "family values" platform.

And while we're at it, let's address that issue because, while many conservatives say that the bad behavior of its elected officials (read: infidelity) has nothing to do with the LGBT community being denied marriage rights, the fact is that it most certainly does. If marriage needs protection, it's from heterosexuals who take their marriage vows lightly. And many of them happen to be politicians. Our friend, David Vitter, still makes calls to his Louisiana constituents inviting them to his family values-based town hall meetings. Hypocrite. How about Mark Sanford? Now we're finding out that he crossed the line with six additional women other than his mistress in Argentina. But don't sweat it. He's actually only had sex with two, his wife and his mistress. I guess, by GOP standards, Sanford can still put himself in the family values column. Hypocrite. Then, there's Gingrich and Ensign, still active in politics. Hypocrites. I haven't forgotten Craig, but he's no longer serving. Nor have I missed the wayward Democrats, Edwards, Clinton and Spitzer, but they are no longer in office. Clinton was impeached, but not removed. Edwards is a private citizen (and was, by the way, when he cheated on his wife). Spitzer resigned, but I believe the GOP calls for his impeachment started about an hour after the story broke. So, I think maybe we should call for the impeachment of Ensign, Vitter and Sanford since they are still in office. After all, impeachment doesn't apply just to the values-challenged Democrats. It should apply across the board. As for Gingrich, everybody knows what he's up to. He's a serial cheater gearing up for 2012 with all this religious-based nonsense. His latest political move is to convert to Catholicism for his wife (a woman he cheated with on his previous wife, no less). That is the ultimate in hypocrisy. Frankly, I know several Republicans and I'm finding that most of them wish he'd fall off the edge of the earth.

There are a couple of points here. First, the GOP - supposedly the party of 'small' government - doesn't believe in "big government" programs designed to improve the lives of the American people. Yet, it has no problem telling the American people how to conduct their personal lives and who they can and cannot marry. If that isn't big, intrusive government, what is? Secondly, there is plenty that Barack Obama can do to nullify Don't Ask/Don't Tell. What, you ask? As Commander-in-Chief, he can suspend Don't Ask/Don't Tell. Then he can begin the process of having that unjust law repealed by the Congress. Harry S. Truman didn't wait for everyone to be 'on board' when he instructed the military to desegregate. It may have taken time, but Truman got the process rolling by utilizing the Executive Order.

The fact is, Barack Obama is a political coward. That's not what the country needed.

Peer closely enough into your computer screens, dear readers, and you’ll see your humble scribe marching around his television wearing a sandwich board that says “UNFAIR TO SATIRISTS” in big bold letters.

Last week was the last straw. It started with missing governors “hiking the Appalachian Trail” and ended with the grim reaper scything down half of Hollywood. How am I supposed to make fun of that?

I could ignore the body count and write about the foibles of live people, but the famous ones have become impossible to satirize. I’m on strike until politicians and powerbrokers stop behaving in ways that exceed even my diseased comic imagination.

But, on second thought, we could all use a laugh. I’ll give it a shot. All I have to do is be more ridiculous than reality. Consider that my disclaimer for all that follows.

***

Disgraced Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina resigns his office, leaves his family, and departs the country. His comeback shocks the world, when he appears on “South America’s Got Talent,” and brings down the house with a version of “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” that would do Susan Boyle proud.

Asked after the show how he was able to put his adulterous behavior behind him, given his strong religious beliefs, Sanford said: “I think I’m good with God because we only “did it” in the missionary position."

Furthermore, the ex-gov is already planning his political comeback, with fellow sinner John Edwards’ help. “John has agreed to fly to Argentina and I’m going to England,” Sanford said. “We call it the Mistress Exchange Program and it’s intended to promote international understanding and world piece.”

In an attempt to reconnect with his dear old friend, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright sends Barack Obama an autographed first edition of “Mein Kampf.” Rahm Emmanuel intercepts it, reads it, and quits the White House and joins the KKK as the first Jewish Grand High Wizard.

Warner Brothers announces that the role of “The Joker,” left tragically unfilled by the death of Oscar winner Heath Ledger, will be played by Rod Blagojevich in the upcoming movie, “The Dark Knight Two: Batman Goes Blago.” “We didn’t feel the first movie was dark enough,” Warner’s publicist said. “This time we’re going to have a ‘puke or get your money back’ guarantee.”

Keith Olbermann and George W Bush have agreed to partner on the next season of “Dancing With The Stars.” No word yet on which will lead, but bookies are offering 8 to 5 on Olbermann, given Bush’s track record as a leader.

The first president Bush announced that, for his ninetieth birthday, he’s going to jump out of a plane with no parachute, strapped to Bill O’Reilly. “I’m not afraid,” Bush 41 said. “That gasbag could lift the Queen Mary.”

The Republican National Committee has declared their nominee for 2012 will be none other than Rush Limbaugh! “He’s extremely popular with the base,” Michael Steele said. “And he meets our rigorous new sexual unattractiveness standard, achieving the highest grade, TUTF.”

Yet another reputation falls into the pit of hypocrisy. Jenna Jameson, the Queen of Porn, was stripped of all her titles and powers when it was discovered that she was secretly having a monogamous relationship with her husband, martial arts champ Tito Ortiz.

In a desperate attempt to regain their fan’s trust, the American Association of Pornographers has instituted mandatory testing for silicone, botox, Viagra and other “performance-enhancing” drugs. “We’ll do whatever it takes to insure that Ron Jeremy’s record of 714 orgasms isn’t tarnished by drug-inflated statistics,” insisted a spokesperson from the Porno Hall of Fame.

Delightful news from the world of reality television! Jon and Kate Gosselin have decided to patch things up and save their show by entering into a plural marriage with Nadya “Octomom” Suleman. The new show, “Jon & Kate & Nadya Plus 16” promises twice the laughs and twice the fun, and is expected to do very well in Utah.

Ben Bernanke got stuck with the check when he and President Obama went out to Five Guys for hamburgers yesterday. In a stroke of good luck for the Fed chairman, he got off scot free when they couldn’t break a trillion.

In a “truth in advertising” case, the Supreme Court decided 8-1 that from now on, all politicians must have two Facebook pages—Clarence Thomas dissenting.

In a related development, Justice Thomas filed the only dissent in The People vs. The Sky Is Blue, arguing it represented an unconstitutional usurpation of Crayola’s proprietary rights.

Tiring of the endless election struggle, the state legislature in St. Paul has thrown in the towel and agreed to go forward with only one US senator. Governor Tim Pawlenty signed the bill, saying, “The rest of the Union can have their showy pair. We, in the great state of Minne, only need one.”

Ed McMahon, Farah Fawcett and Michael Jackson and Gale Storm are the latest inductees in the “Keith Richards Outlived Me???” game, which is rapidly eclipsing “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” as Hollywood’s favorite pastime.

***

Okay, this is too hard. The stress is killing me. I tried telling my wife I needed a vacation, that the world is unfair to satirists and I need to go on strike.

“It’s impossible to be funny anymore, sweetheart,” I plead. “I need to go hike the Appalachian Trail.”

“Is that a politician in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” she replied, thereby proving me wrong.

Michael Jackson, who never wanted to grow old, didn't.

Hypocrisy (hy.poc.ri.sy): The practice of claiming to have standards or beliefs that are contrary to one's real character or actual behavior.

I'd say the above just about defines the present-day GOP, and it is because of this that I cannot even take the party seriously. I'm more than sure that the GOP will find its way back to power because it's part of the serendipitous ebb and flow of politics (but not because they are smart and know what they are doing). In the meantime, the GOP is distinguishing itself in a bunch of very negative ways. One of its most distinguished characteristics is its level of hypocrisy. Now, there are many types of hypocrisy but - since the GOP is intent on appealing to Christians on the fringe - let's just focus on that. It has been clear for quite some time (think back to 1994's Gingrich revolution) that the GOP's primary political strategy is to blur the line between church and state. Apparently, they feel they have some edge here. You know, the party of family values and all that drivel…like they have some divine lead on that count. Well, somebody forgot to tell the GOP that it actually has to walk the walk as well.

The GOP is very quick to jump on issues of morality. They definitely best the Democrats on that one, but I think that's intentional. They come out of the box swinging on the issue of same-sex marriage (Oh, no! We must protect the sanctity of marriage - one man and one woman!), but they absolutely lose their mind over abortion (Baby killers! Murderers!). Now these crazies are even decrying women who take birth control as murders. Sorry, but that's just plain crazy. No other word works here. Yet, rather than building its base to put itself in a position to maybe win again, the GOP is intent on solidifying its complete sell out to the Christian conservatives. The problem here is the whole perception-reality thing.

While the GOP has no problem going after the GLBT community and pro-choice advocates and painting them (and their supporters) as sinners, it remains strangely mute on its own band of heathens. Where do we begin? Should we go back to Larry Craig, a key GOP Christian, and virulent sponsor of anti-gay legislation? He was caught propositioning another man in an airport men's room. Only problem was that the recipient of Craig's advances was undercover at the time, and Craig was arrested for "homosexual lewd conduct." There was, of course, no need for alarm. Craig reassured his constituents that he wasn't gay. Whew. Personally, I was glad because idiots like Craig give gays a bad name. I was also worried about his constituents there for a minute. I always worry about people from Idaho. Funny thing is that this isn't the first time questions about Craig have come up. There have been questions about his sexuality because of incidents dating back to 1967. Who knew? The GOP, of course. Because another gentleman with prominent Republican connections reported having oral sex with Craig in Union Station somewhere around 2004.

How about David Vitter? Here's another paragon of virtue, or at least that's how he was sold. Sold is really it. That's what this is all about, after all. Vitter was a rabid proponent of the 2006 effort to amend the U.S. Constitution in order to create a permanent ban on same-sex marriage. In spite of all the issues facing the country in that year, Vitter openly stated that no issue was more important than protecting the institution of marriage from the queers (and I say that with great affection because I am one). Luckily, the American people recognized that the Constitution has never been used to deny civil rights, only to advance them. It was never a popular cause.

Then, a funny thing happened to Vitter on his way to holier-than-thou. The great marriage protector's number was discovered in the phone records of the notorious "D.C. Madam." Just a year before, during his campaign for the senate, Vitter had been accused of carrying on a lengthy affair with a French Quarter prostitute by a member of the Louisiana Republican State Central Committee. Vitter denied it then, but there was no denying it after his number was found. Vitter moved on into Plan B, where you contritely apologize and say you've been forgiven by your God. That's what he did. He had a conversation with his wife, his marriage counselor and his God. He's been forgiven. He's keeping that private, of course, for his family's sake. Everything's okay now. He's back to normal. Yeah. And he'll never do that again, by the way.

Here's a blast from the past. We've got Newt Gingrich, that serial cheater in rehab. He's transforming himself into a Christian, probably making a case for a run in 2012. No worry that he's a confessed cheater, working on marriage no. 3, and recipient of a congressional reprimand on ethics charges. He's a Christian, dammit. Here are some of the Newt's new preachings:

"The first job we have as Americans is to reach out to everybody in the country who is not yet saved, and to help them understand the spiritual basis of a creator-endowed society."

WTF? Are you kidding me? First of all, where is Gingrich getting this drivel? From our forefathers? I think not. But let's put that aside for a minute. Someone should tell Newtie that Bible 101 teaches you about intent. Intent is critical from Buddhism to Catholicism. Hypocrites need not apply. You need to do this stuff for the right reasons. Are your intentions sincere, Newtie? I don't think building a pathway to an election by feigning (and exploiting) spirituality counts as sincere. Gingrich spoke these words at none other than Lou Engle's (false prophet, by the way) "Rediscovering God in America" conference hosted by the Rock Church in Virginia just a couple of months ago. Oh, yeah, it was also broadcast on GodTV, proving once again that mankind has transformed religion into one of the biggest businesses in America. Remember the words of Mark Twain, "Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool." No truer words were ever spoken.

But now we've had the Big Kahuna: Nevada Republican John Ensign, once touted as a potential go-to guy for the GOP in 2012. The proverbial Mr. Clean. NOT. Ensign recently confessed to an affair with the wife of one of his staffers. Nice touch. The families knew each other. This guy reigns as the Grand Marshal of the Hypocrites Parade. He's the only Charismatic in the Senate, a born-again member of the Pentecostal International Church of the Foursquare Gospel (that's a freakin' mouthful). Whoa. Not only that, but he's a prominent member of the Promise Keepers, that nifty little cult that positions itself as an evangelical group. And that's about as serious as you can get, because Mr. Ensign violated two of the key Promise Keeper codes of ethics:

• A Promise Keeper is committed to practicing spiritual, moral, ethical and sexual purity.
• A Promise Keeper is committed to building strong marriages and families through love, protection and Biblical values.

Oops. Sorry, mistake. Er. Um. This is the biggest mistake of my life. If I could take it back I would. Blah. Blah. Blah. Yeah, well, of course you would, Hoss. You would because you are politically screwed. Don't worry, though, Ensign remains committed to his job in the Senate. As of right now, he won't be resigning. This adds and extra dose of hypocrisy because Senator John Ensign was right on the front lines back in 1998, demanding that President Clinton resign over the revelation of his affair with Monica Lewinski. Remember that? Referring to Clinton, Ensign said, "He has no credibility left." And so, the worm turns, Mr. Ensign. He clearly forgot that self-righteous judgment for political gain will almost always come back and bite you in the butt some day. He's getting his now. Let's hope it's the gift that keeps on giving.

Historically, marrying church and state has never led to a successful or sustainable government. Take a more modern-day look around the Middle East right now for more proof. One has simply got to wonder what the GOP is thinking, if it is thinking at all. It doesn't much matter, though. It's pretty clear that the GOP cannot live up to its own standards and, until it does, it's a just a political party bathing itself in a giant vat of hypocrisy.

A new wind is blowing through America, change is in the air and I’m not talking about Barack Obama. This change is deeper than that, more fundamental. Our president is a product of that change, not its cause. Americans are marginalizing the margins.

The fastest growing party in America is no party. For a century and a half we’ve had Democrats and Republicans, but the populous is rapidly becoming neither. The fastest growing party in America is the Independents.

Independents are misunderstood and derided by both sides because they represent a threat to both sides.

“Independents believe in nothing, they are unable to commit to anything, they are adrift in a salad bar of choices, picking whatever looks good at the moment.” Those are the dismissive accusations, and they are wrong.

Wrong but plausible because, while there is a philosophy beneath the impulse towards independence, it hasn’t been articulated clearly yet.

Many strains of thought have come together to create this new philosophy, but the dominant one is pragmatic idealism—Pragdealism. I am a Pragdealist, and I offer that term as my contribution to a political/cultural conversation that needs new terms as much as it needs fresh blood and new ideas.

A Pragdealist believes that an alternative to the conservative/liberal dichotomy is desperately needed, right now, for the most practical, idealistic reason.

There is a fatal flaw in our left-right continuum, a kind of torque, built into both movements, that is constantly trying to tear them apart and rip them from reality. Conservatives and Liberals are both under pressure from their extremes; the hard left and the hard right are the magnetic poles of both camps. When your beliefs are ideological, almost religious, the true believers always have the high ground. Those keepers of the flame are the truly righteous; one opposes them at one’s own peril.

Colin Powell is currently undergoing the same excommunication that Joe Lieberman suffered last year. Each tossed out, declared anathema, shunned, because he held one fatal position not blessed by the keepers of the flame, otherwise known as the base. And never mind that Colin Powell is ninety percent conservative and Joe Lieberman ninety percent liberal.

Each committed a mortal sin. One that illustrates just how diseased and dysfunctional their respective “camps” have become: He thought for himself.

The greatest impulse towards Pragdealism isn’t an inability to take sides in the donkey-elephant wars—but a feeling that the dichotomy is exhausted, no longer useful in identifying real-world conflicts, problems, and least of all, solutions. It’s not even promotive of conversation. Democrats and Republicans are like the Dodgers and the Giants. One is a fan of one or the other, you want one to win and the other to lose, all the time, every time, no “reasons” necessary. Loyalty is the highest virtue and blind loyalty its purest expression.

Otherwise how could Sarah Palin be considered a credible leader, or Dennis Kucinich be taken seriously? Either one would be a disaster for the nation, but either one would get most of their party’s votes, if nominated.

Why do hate groups breed on both sides, why the rigid, stupid, outdated ideas that never seem to die? Why does it take political catastrophe for either side to make some obvious, common sense changes? Because the poles don’t pull that way. The poles pull away from the polls, hard, until the rubber band breaks and your party spends a generation in the wilderness.

Pragdealists aren’t somewhere in the zombie middle between Liberals and Conservatives, though we agree with some positions of both. But both come with so much encrusted history, so many battle scars, grudges and grievances, so damned much baggage that we take a page from the most hated American institution of all, the airline industry, and say, leave that valise at the curb, Champ. We’re not paying the fifty bucks.

A Pragdealist believes, first of all, that whatever he believes must work, or he won’t believe in it. A Pragdealist is pragmatic, but that doesn’t mean not idealistic. We just believe that our ideals must function in the real world.

But pragmatism in the service of nothing is useless, rudderless, ultimately nihilistic. Marx, Jesus, Adam Smith and I all pretty much agree—the greatest good for the greatest number—that’s the ideal. But the pragmatist knows how you try to attain that unattainable goal is everything. It’s the difference between Thomas Paine and Pol Pot.

Pragdealists seek neither right nor left, but the “sweet spot.” Our prejudice pulls us away from extremes, our tug is towards the reasonable, the workable, our philosophy is downright hostile to extremists of all colors. In the blood of a Pragdealist run antibodies that reject the virus of extremism.

Pragdealists of a conservative bent don’t have to worry about being seduced by a Hitler or a Franco, either one would be anathema to a Pragdealist. Pragdealists with liberal inclinations don’t run the risk of falling in love with a Lenin or a Castro, either one would be revealed for the frauds they were when judged by Pragdealist standards.

I’m a Pragdealist who is somewhat more liberal than conservative. But I’ve been told I’m as liberal is it gets. That is so blatantly untrue I don’t think the person who said it even means it. I can think of a hundred writers and politicians more liberal than I, without breaking a sweat. But pigeonholing me as a member of the other side is a reflex not limited to Conservatives. On liberal blogs I’ve been called a neo-con, Zionist thug—and worse.

So, why do true believers of either camp want to glue me to the pole of the opposite camp when I disagree with them on some particular issue or attitude?

Because that’s what they do. Liberals demonize Conservatives and Conservatives return the favor. And anyone who wants to see the word independently, come to his own conclusions, who dares to declare his right to think for himself without reference to the ancient, exhausted ideologies is a demon to both camps.

The Pragdealist thinks we have demons enough. He will not demonize the right or the left. What he will do is declare his independence, exert his inalienable right to try to use his reason, illuminated by his idealism, to make the world a better place.

The Pragdealist knows he doesn’t have all the answers, but he’s still looking. If the problems of today could have been solved by the Liberals or the Conservatives they would have been. Each has had ample opportunity. Yet neither has had a new idea in ages. Are they still looking?

I believe most American are, at bottom, Pragdealists. Pragdealist principles and achievements are all over our history of compromise and progress. We are a nation of the middle, when extremes like the Weathermen and the Ku Klux Klan arise, they may flourish for a while, but ultimately we reject them.

But we have lacked the words to ennoble our moderate impulses, we have let ourselves be defined by other, hotter heads.

No more. There is a Pragdealist alternative. And this is our Declaration of Independence.

Now, I'm pretty sure that if this had been a junior congressman of the pinko liberal Democratic persuasion, Bill O'Lielly and Boss Limbaugh would be screaming "Treason!" I'm not sure I'd go as far as calling this treason. No. Treason was George Bush approving the release of CIA covert operative Valerie Plame's name to the media. That was indeed treason. Mr. Kirk's actions are a combination of hubris and stupidity, two hallmarks of the present GOP brain trust. The thinking is that China is savvy enough to recognize this as a partisan political shot being delivered by a relatively obscure junior politician trying to make a name for himself. I mean, after all, Congressman Kirk is interested in running for the senate.

I'm not sure this was critical thinking on Kirk's part. The "making a name" part is easy. It's public relations 101. The real trick is finding the right thing to attach your name to. I don't think this was it, Congressman Kirk.

I never thought I’d live to see the day, but Dick Cheney offered his nation a powerful lesson in citizenship this week. When, at one of his daily Obama bashings, he was asked where he stood on the gay marriage debate, the following came out of his mouth:

“I think, you know, freedom means freedom for everyone.”

In the immortal words of Emperor Hirohito, I am going to “endure the unendurable” and applaud Mr. Cheney for his enlightened statement. “Freedom means freedom for everyone.”

Way to go, Dick. I know you don’t really mean it, you just happen to have a gay daughter. You’re just looking after your own, but, then again, so are we all.

In that fundamental way, Dick Cheney is no worse than any of us, and no better. We’re all libertarians, for ourselves.

We’re all libertarians where we are concerned. I trust me with anything, I trust you about as far as I can throw you, and I will, given half a chance. You’re a reckless speeder; I’m in a hurry. I can handle it; you can’t. I treat me like Jefferson; I treat you like Stalin.

And if what we demand of others becomes inconvenient for us, we simply change our demands. People shed their beliefs as easily as they shed their sweaters and for the same reason—things got too hot.

If a liberal is a conservative who has not yet been mugged, a social conservative is a social liberal whose daughter hasn’t yet “gotten into trouble.”

Some anti-abortion politician’s seventeen-year-old daughter gets herself pregnant. A discreet trip is arranged, unless the politician is running for president at the time, in which case the trouble becomes a blessed event. The abortion laws we’ve passed don’t mean a thing when it comes to family, not our family, we’re a special case.

But we’re all special cases. The existential question for a democratic society is how do you reconcile 300 million people who don’t want anyone telling them what to do with 300 million people who want to tell everyone else what to do, when it’s the same 300 million people?

The answer is simple: Rights and Laws.

We have Rights to protect us from others and we have Laws to protect others from us.

But simple doesn’t mean easy. Getting the balance right has been the work of generations.

The Founding Fathers and their enlightenment tutors knew their history. They’d seen the arbitrary rule of King, Pope and Despot, they knew the corruption it led to, they saw how those rules applied to “everybody else” while the Sun King MILFed his way through Versailles.

But they didn’t trust democracy, either, because tyranny is tyranny and it doesn’t matter who the tyrants are, or how many of them are oppressing how few of the rest.

It took a stoke of genius to untie that knot, and fortunately for us and the rest of mankind, geniuses were a farthing a dozen a few hundred years ago, when we needed them most.

The rule of law was the starting point. But the real breakthrough was when they came up with the concept of rights. Rights were anti-law, rights are places the law can’t go. Rights are so important to retaining freedom that when they weren’t put in the Constitution, the first Congress and three-quarters of the States jammed ten of them into that document by amendment in four short years.

We call those ten amendments the Bill of Rights, but they’re really the Bill of Leave Us the Hell Alone.

Rights and laws: If you can locate the balance point between those two poles you’ll have a pretty good idea how free a given society is. And if you want a society that is self-governing and sustainable you should also know this:

The best laws aren’t the ones that are enforced. They are the ones that are obeyed.

There is a cost when laws are foolish, outdated, unjust, or generally disregarded and held in contempt. Such laws devalue the currency of the other laws. It’s the legal equivalent of inflation—have too many worthless laws and soon the whole legal edifice is bankrupt.

Rights are even more frail. The USSR had a bill of rights, but it rarely advanced beyond the theoretical. Rights are the restraint of power by paper. It’s a miracle they are ever respected at all.

The alternative to Rights and Laws is Rules and Obedience. Mankind lived under that yoke for as long as mankind lived, until the last couple of centuries, because it worked. The alternative was the law of the jungle and we’d left the jungle behind when we dug the first ditch. But, as the old saying goes, you can take the homo sapiens out of the jungle, but you can’t take the jungle out of the homo sapiens. Bullies and brutes, the nefarious and the negligent, are always with us, probably in proportions unchanged since the stone age. Mankind needs to be ruled or it dies. The only question is how.

The great good act behind Mr. Cheney’s tacit support for gay marriage is that he said it out loud. He could have hidden behind his politics and condemned it, while quietly telling Mary, “Go to Sweden, honey, and I’ll walk you down the aisle.”

But he didn’t, he supported tolerance instead. That’s an example for all of us libertarian fascists. If we are going to live together in peace and freedom, if we are to properly balance rights and laws, we need restraint in our behavior and tolerance in our opinions, both as much as humanly practical.

But who gets to say how much is practical? Why me, of course.

Well, it didn't take long for the anti-abortion zealots to find justification in "the scriptures" for the murder of Doctor George Tiller, an abortion provider and one of the nation's few doctors providing late-term abortions. Dave Leach, an anti-abortion activist who runs "Prayer and Action News," a newsletter that the suspect in the case (Scott Roeder, 51) once subscribed and contributed to, said of Dr. Tiller's death, "To call this a crime is too simplistic." He went on to say, "There is Christian scripture that would support this." Really?

Well, actually, Mr. Leach, we can indeed call this a crime because that is exactly what it is. It's called murder. In this country, it doesn't matter if you commit murder in God's name. This is a secular nation.  No matter how badly religious zealots want to slip into an alternative universe, our forefathers didn't intend for us to be a Judeo-Christian nation following Biblical law. People were not put here to roam the planet, sit in judgment of one another's actions, and mete out their own brand of punishment. We have courts for that. I'm sure I'll be called anti-God, but it's not God I have a problem with.

It's God's self-proclaimed (and self-serving, I might add) warriors on earth that I have a problem with. It's those who twist the scriptures to justify their own very un-Christian actions on earth…to take away a life in God's name, or to start a war in God's name, or to deny one group its basic civil rights in God's name. They are indeed the issue. They want us to believe that these directives come to them from interpreting a document written over a period of 1,400 to 1,800 years by 40 different authors, and applying it to modern day life. Think about how absurd that is.

Here is what Doctor George Tiller is guilty of: Doing his job as a health care provider. In the United States, a woman is guaranteed access to abortion under the Constitution. (Remember that document?) He was simply doing his job much like you and I. He was also only one of three physicians in the United States who offered late-term abortions. Regardless of what the anti-abortion zealots claim, a late-term abortion isn't the result of some teenager deciding not to have a child at the last minute. Dr. Tiller also did not perform late-term abortions simply because the mother was "depressed," as Bill O'Reilly claims. A late-term abortion is considered when the mother's life is in danger or the fetus is under stress. That's a painfully difficult (and private) decision every family has the right to make without anti-abortion zealots getting in its face.

All of the pro-life spokespeople who spent Sunday and Monday putting their best foot forward for the media - denouncing Tiller's murder and calling it a tragic event at the hands of an extremist - went home later and popped champagne corks in celebration of Tiller's death. The reality is that this is exactly what they intended, faux apologies notwithstanding. Only Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, let his true feelings be known. He said "George Tiller was a mass murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God." Anti-abortionist zealots seek to influence the extremists that gravitate towards them, like the suspect in the Tiller case - Scott Roeder. They refer to abortion with inflammatory words such as "genocide" and "murder." Some web sites put up photos of abortion providers with their names and addresses, license plate numbers, even their children's names and the schools they attend. Some put up "wanted" posters as if these doctors are criminals - even offering rewards. And then the pro-lifers have their poster boys in Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and, primarily in this case, Bill O'Reilly.

O'Reilly has targeted Dr. Tiller for several years. Since 2005, Dr. Tiller has been demonized 28 times on O'Reilly's show. He has referred to Dr. Tiller as "Tiller the baby killer." He has accused Tiller of being a Nazi with "blood on his hands." And just keep an eye on how O'Reilly stirs the pot as his rant to the intellectuals who watch his show progresses. O'Reilly's commentaries always seem to start on a calm and intelligent plane, but they quickly degrade into outright anger. This is usually characterized by a red face, a loud voice as well as accusations and name-calling with no apparent basis in fact. It's no wonder that the lunatic fringe acts on these rants, and that's exactly what organizations like Operation Rescue are counting on. They get to keep their hands clean while others do their bidding. In spite of O'Reilly's claim yesterday that, "We never incited anyone to do anything," the exact opposite is true.

Even while denying complicity, O'Reilly managed to slip in some more inflammatory statements yesterday, like society should condemn the murder of Dr. Tiller even though Tiller has killed 60,000 fetuses. My mother would call this "talking out of both sides of his mouth." When O'Reilly accuses, he makes it seem like he has access to Dr. Tiller's files. He does not, he never has, nor should he under the rules of patient confidentiality (even though O'Reilly does not see it that way).  In this case, he deals in dangerously inflammatory rhetoric fueled by a twisted ideology. His pronouncements of having proof of what he's saying never seem to materialize. He doesn't show his corroborating evidence because he usually doesn't have any. The audience he appeals to are not "thinkers," so they don't require proof. They are sheep.

While Dick Cheney travels across the country warning us about al Qaeda, I'd worry a lot more about domestic terrorism over the next several years. Lacking any kind of real focus and leadership, the GOP is turning even further to the right - allowing the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly to set the tone and message - narrowing their base and attracting more and more of the lunatic fringe. It is at this point that the GOP moves out of the irrelevant column and into the dangerous column.

It is time that President Obama stopped being so unfair to the Republican party. His nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court puts the lie to his promise of bipartisanship.

The GOP, or Geriatric Old Party, has one strategy left—praying for Obama to screw up—and it’s unfair to take that hope from them.

The President nominates a Puerto Rican-American woman with a track record longer than Seabiscuit’s and a resume so big it could put your eye out if you’re not careful and the Republicans weren’t.

Karl Rove says Sonia Sotomayor lacks intellectual heft, which is sort of like Rod Blagojevich saying she lacks integrity. Other Republican worthies try their best to innuendo and nitpick to death this ridiculously overqualified nominee who was first chosen for federal service by a Republican, George H. W Bush, though I’m not sure if Bush 41 is a Republican by today’s standards.

Soon, all that will be left of the Gelded Old Party is their shriveled base. Hatred on steroids will do that to you.

If there were still some Americans who weren’t disgusted with the heinous treatment Ms. Sotomayor was receiving at the hands of the Grouchy Old Party, the right-wing talk radio shock jocks remedied that shortfall. “Identity politics.” “Latina chick.” “Affirmative action.” “Judicial activist.” They used more code words on her than a spook in the Politburo.

The hypocrisy of the Gutted Old Party knows no limits. If they are really so dead set against affirmative action, how do you explain Michael Steele?

It’s hard to make the charges stick to this woman. Even the left is worried. Nobody even knows her true position on abortion, other than Grandma Cheney should have had one.

Sonia Sotomayor is a moderate and the country knows it. The desperation of the Grotesque Old Party is a sad thing to witness. The Republicans once had serious designs on being the majority party in America. Look at them now.

If President Obama really believed in “too big to fail” he’d have nominated Noam Chomsky.

But no, he picks a near-perfect candidate, a woman who will replace David Souter admirably, while the Gray Old Party slowly commits suicide to the mournful strains of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”