i've been trying to understand what mccain - and now palin - mean when they invoke "change" and "reform" in their speeches, given that they are members of the party that has been quite solidly in power for nearly eight years.

and it finally dawned on me that for this party - the party whose chief strategist openly worked for a "permanent majority," and who have made it clear that they perceive every agency and policy of government as an instrument of party ideology - reform must mean the final dissolution of democracy, the total removal of meaningful opposition, the final entrenchment of their own righteousness as the sole measure of civil society.

that they have become so blatantly, sinew-in-the-teeth evil over the past couple of decades should surprise me. but it does not.