There are so many things to frown about with the current U.S. Executive Branch. I do believe that these eight years have done more harm to our country than any previous 8 years in my lifetime or likely in any American lifetime other than perhaps the founding father's inability to elminate slavery from our lands before or with the writing of the U.S. Constitution.

That said, what I wonder is what elements that are so often criticized are matters of ideology (what goals the admininstration is setting out to accomplish) and what are matters of means (how this administration operates to reach accomplish their goals).

The Cheney profile in the Washington Post a few weeks ago was unusually creepy for several reasons. First of all, because of the furtiveness of the operation, secondly, because of the appearance of operating while not at cross purposes with the president seeminly not at the president's direct behest or strong encouragement, thirdly because of the ways he used his knowledge of the levers of power, the slowness of the bureaucracy, the ability to undermine the spirit of many laws, and be unaccountable to anyone, and fourthly and finally because of what he set out to accomplish and largely did -- unfettered ability to torture at will, spying on Americans without authorization from the proper channels, holding "enememy combatants" some of whom are American citizens for unlimited periods of time without charging them or allowing them legal council, pushing for tax cuts for the rich and very rich, putting the desires of outsourcing and a free-market system ahead of the success of the Iraq venture, putting loyalists in running the Iraq venture ahead of those vastly more competent, and so on and so on.

To put it another way, let's suppose