GUEST, if you look into the histories of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rove, etc., I think you'll find that they've been conservatives all along. It's only within the last dozen years or so that they've revealed that they're not just consevatives, they are far right conservatives--somewhat to the right of Genghis Khan. Granted, when it comes to tyranny, to the average citizen it makes little difference whether the tyrant is a communist or a fascist. I think this kind of sub rosa maneuvering you're postulating oozes right back down into the swamp of ding-a-ling conspiracy theories. If you invent bogey-men and cook up fictions instead of looking at the real world, you stand no chance of ever acting in a manner that might help counter the pig's breakfast the government is making of things. The real problem is the wimpish and gutless "Me too! Me too!" stance of the Democratic Party within recent years. What one needs to do is get involved in the Democratic Party, yell your head off, and if necessary, grab them by the nose and haul them kicking and screaming in the direction they need to go. What a lot of American voters really want is a genuine alternative, not the Tweedledum and Tweedledumber alternatives they've been offered in recent elections.

Don Firth