counterpoint to the shrub's comments at the council of religious broadcasters:

"Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's service when it is violating all His laws. Our passions...possess so much metaphysical subtlety and so much overpowering eloquence that they insinuate themselves into the understanding and the conscience and convert both to their party."

--JOHN ADAMS

get that? power always thinks.... how we get so quickly from the need for sober-minded policy decisions--which should begin based on the most widely-recognized and accepted evidence--to theologizing, making assertions about the absolute nature of god and being.... and the process becomes even more suspicious when the theologizing has a giddy tone and reaches self-congratulatory conclusions. yeah, in the face of that i think it's wise to hold up for a second, just drop the immediate issue for a moment, in order to consider the psychology of power.