"The thing I hate fourth-worst about the Bush regime—after the way they're screwing up the country, dishonoring the flag, and making the world a more dangerous place—is all the ammunition they supply the tin-hat brigade," writes UCLA professor Mark A.R. Kleiman, who thinks the Abramoff scandal belongs in a spy novel. "How am I supposed to convince my students not to believe in elaborate wicked conspiracies when we've got an elaborate wicked conspiracy running the damned country?"

from Slate.