The Republican right, the exclusive control mechanism of the party, had during the entire campaign leading up to Election Night coverage drummed over and over the point that if elected fiscal responsibility would be restored.  The era of high spending would end.

The Republicans were spurred on by the newest and most vocal element of their constituency, the Tea Party.  At scores of rallies held throughout America big government spenders were told that their days were numbered.  Tea Party members were, in the words of Peter Finch in the great seventies' hit film "Network", "mad as hell and were not going to take it anymore."

Two major Republican figures from the House of Representatives were asked the same question.  They were Tea Party favorites Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and forthcoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia.

Of course they can.  This type of deal making was always available.  The current tax proposal is capitulation being packaged as compromise.  Republicans are always delighted to see capitulation.  

Only a Barack Obama would have the gall to stand before America and proclaim that outright surrender constitutes a grand triumph of the American political system.

Take your bow, Mr. Obama.  The top 1 percent of Americans possess better than 90 percent of the nation's assets.  More Americans are working longer hours for less pay.  When was the last time that the minimum wage was increased?  

Progressives owe a debt of gratitude to Dan Bartlett for expressing the truth even if the intention was to boast about a "victory" that has been a tragic loss to the middle class and poor and a victory for the super privileged of American society.  

Bartlett was chortling over the Republicans having put one over on the Democrats when it came to the initial act whereby such irresponsible cuts would be imposed.  It was not done in a normal fashion through legislation but as an add-on and as such the cuts would thereby expire.

This was but phase one of the strategy.  The intent at that time was for those tax cuts for the top two percent of Americans to be extended.  This is certainly the present intention of Senate and House Republican leadership, spearheaded by Senator Mitch McConnell and Congressman and soon to be Speaker of the House John Boehner.

"Praise the Lord, pass the ammunition and give me my tax cuts!" is reflective of what passes for current day philosophy of the New World Order, neoconservative right inhabited by the likes of George W. Bush, Tea Partiers, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, and Karl Rove.

How much better it would be for America as well as the rest of the world if the angry Boehner refrain regarding Obama's health care legislation of "Hell no, you can't!" and the angry frustration embodied in it represented an accurate assessment of where things really stand in current day America.

In the overall scheme of events the Obama campaign refrain that Boehner was mocking is far more indicative of how the New World Order neocons are faring than any kind of accurate prediction of where Obama's forthcoming administration would take America.

While America stands at a dangerous crossroad with a disparity between the super rich and the rest of Americans having reached the level at which revolutions occur, we see a situation where Rand Paul is elected to the senate in Kentucky, then promptly declares himself to be an advocate of the rich.  He states that they create jobs and as a result Americans should be kinder to them.

Paul's senior colleague from Kentucky, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, recently appeared on "Meet the Press" and needed to be schooled by the program's host, David Gregory, on what constitutes a tax increase.  McConnell posited the idea that if a tax cut that those Americans making over $250,000 per year and up is not extended that the result is a tax increase being imposed during a turbulent economic period.

Gregory refused to let McConnell off the hook.  He pointed out the difference between the lapse of a tax cut and a tax increase.  The removal of a tax cut, while increasing the tax burden of the payer, encompasses what a person would have been paying but for the lessened amount.  Hence, removing a tax cut means that a former decreased status has been removed and the obligation level that would have otherwise been payable is now in vogue.

An impressive entry on Obama's student resume was serving as president of the Harvard Law Review.  In that situation he needed to assume a collegial posture and weigh positions on issues regarding potential articles.

Obama has carried the aforementioned instances into an unrealistic expectation that as president he can deal in a Lincolnesque or Harvard Law Review context with the likes of Senator Mitch McConnell and Congressman John Boehner.  The only way that historical significance has relevance is if there are enough common facts to establish viable comparison.

Republican Senate Minority Leader McConnell delivered a message after the recent midterm election that should have provided Obama with a strong enough indication to recognize that his grand objective of compromise in the national interest was no more than wishful thinking without practical merit.  

Bush's latest return with the same brash cockiness that has been a staple item recalls the words of a professor of his at Harvard, where he pursued a master of business administration degree.  

What the professor found in Bush's behavior, which included coming to class equipped with chewing tobacco and spitting pieces of it into a cup, was not so much a fundamental deficiency of intelligence but a glaring absence of parental development.

His father, George H.W. Bush, was criticized for a spoiled patrician's manner.  Critics said that he resembled someone who had been born on third base and was convinced that he had hit a triple.

At a time when the Republicans are beset by Tea Party candidates whose serious behavior overwhelms the most conscious satire efforts constructed by writers of Saturday Night Live, a situation that would traditionally redound in favor of Democrats, we have instead a silly season where some of the most unfit candidates ever foisted on the public are enjoying leads in the polls.

Two recent classic cases, both from the West, jump out for inspection.  Meg Whitman, a woman who has unleashed her E-Bay executive millions in a bid to buy the governorship of California, used some of her money to purchase time for an ad where she inadvertently salutes her opponent.  

Whitman is seen and heard longing for the past, for that wonderful California of 1980 when she and her husband moved to the Golden State in pursuit of the good life.  

Many political officeholders and strategists have long contended that it would be absurd and impractical to ignite a political time bomb such as investigating and potentially recommending that criminal action be taken against members of the Bush Administration.  

This grave issue should not be decided based on political expediency.  International law and the United States Constitution mandate action if the evidence warrants it.

Let the Republican-Tea Party members, not necessarily in that order, scream at the tops of their lungs.  The louder that they shriek the greater the indication that justice is being served.

Was the walkout justified?  By examining O'Reilly's comment that triggered the exit the logical conclusion to be drawn by examining the facts is that not only were the walkouts justified; Behar and Goldberg should be heartily commended.

The walkout was triggered by a comment that O'Reilly made that was consistent with anti-Islamic bigots who have spoken out on the topic.  O'Reilly opposed the building of an Islamic center near ground zero.  

This opposition exists despite the fact that the imam supporting the measure has been the quintessence of inclusive thought in the religious sphere.  The FBI has used him to brief agents as part of their sensitivity training.  He has interacted regularly with figures from the Christian and Jewish communities.  

Just when some believed that things could not get anymore weird, along comes Republican Mad Tea Party congressional candidate Rich Iott of Ohio.  This challenger who, like other Mad Tea Party candidates, is running for office on the premise that he can help fix a broken political system, has an egregious hobby.

Iott explains that he is a history buff.  This is his reason for dressing up in a uniform from the 5th SS Wiking Panzer Division of Adolf Hitler's German Nazi Army from World War Two.  It was pointed out that this division was responsible for helping execute Hungarian Jews during World War Two.

Iott, displaying typical Mad Tea Party self-righteousness, blames critics for attacking him unfairly over a practice he can explain.  Given his fervent interest in history, Iott often dresses up in uniform relative to historical battle re-creations that are harmless.  In this case he earlier stated an admiration for Germany having demonstrated exemplary military expertise sufficient to almost achieve world conquest.

Let us say that someone chooses to cover that same war and shows the bloodshed that resulted.  To do so is giving aid and comfort to the enemy.  In fact, such coverage should be immediately shut down.

This is precisely the scenario that occurred in the Iraq War.  This was Donald Rumsfeld's "shock and awe" war that was supposed to inflict casualties only on the troops of dictator Saddam Hussein, the same figure that Rumsfeld visited, shook hands with, and provided weapons with which he killed his own Kurdish population.

Now the neocons of the New World Order decided that it was time to rid Iraq of former ally Saddam so that profits would not have to be shared and Halliburton, Bechtel and Monsanto would have unrestrained pickings.  In fact, the division of spoils was decided in advance through secret meetings in former Halliburton head man and then Vice President Dick Cheney's office.

Now 16 years later an examination of what is happening in television reveals a far more dangerous pattern than the kind of programmed dumbness that Donaldson denounced.  The dumbing down of that period involved mainly comedy while today circumstances exist to be taken as far more serious and ultimately dangerous.

How many of you have undergone the depressing experience of attempting to reason with individuals who regularly watch Fox News?  If so can you understand why Keith Olbermann refers to Rupert Murdoch's network as "Fixed News"?

Analyzing the Fox News phenomenon once more sends us back to George Orwell's prescient masterpiece "1984" with the realization of why so many of us regard that work as the textbook for Propaganda 1.  Orwell's work superbly depicted a national television apparatus where the docile citizenry received messages from Big Brother without ever generating a spark of curiosity generating question asking.  

Earlier in the week I wrote an article advancing the idea that the Democrats had a ready made issue to take to the voters in the upcoming mid-term election.  That issue was tax cuts and even as seasoned a neo-conservative strategist as Grover Norquist conceded that this could be a difficult issue for Republicans if Democrats exploited this potential strategic advantage.

With more Americans hurting by the day, with many unemployed and others working more hours than ever while seeing their standards of living eroding, there would be a massive reaction to the idea of continuing the Bush tax cuts with an emphasis on maintaining assistance to individuals in the top two percent.  

Economists have estimated that maintaining those cuts would cause the ever burgeoning debt to expand by $4 trillion over the next 10 years.