fear and loathing, on the campaign trail

The meeting.

Two, three, four men who were not the ones you saw at podiums, behind Fox News desks. The man who's pure evil. Hard men. Men who say 'flip the switch' or 'push the button' or 'pull that lever.' When they were younger, they might have done it themselves.

They are the hidden men, not even the grey eminences. The fixers. "That one, now!"

Now the convention is booing Obama. Perfunctory, and unenthusiastically. Oh, line about immigrants being Americans too. Pro forma applause.

The crowd boos, the crowd cheers the war. Rudy Giuliani moves them to froth - Lindsay Graham moves them to scorn.

It's an... evil triumphalism. It's the party of Jupiter Maximus, with Mammon on the one side and thuggish Ares on the other. A party where the leaders are feted till they puke, where the powerful pushing down the weak, those declared 'entarte' or unclean - is not only allowed, not only encouraged, but considered a sacrament.

My God, you've done a journalism! The depressing thing is the comments thread; all kinds of people moaning that she was too cruel to the bastards. Shocked, shocked, I tell you, and nothing at all to do with this. No.