The late paleocon columnist Sam Francis used to refer to the Republican and Democratic Parties, respectively, as the Stupid Party and the Evil Party. Every now and then (all too often, actually) they'd take a notion to demonstrate their bipartisanship, and they'd do something that was stupid and evil. And indeed, just as there is a fine line between genius and insanity, so, I would contend, there is a fine line between stupidity and evil.

Consider.

Most of us just spent a good bit of our spare time trying to defeat the Wall St Bailout. 90% of the American People, judging from the polls and the phone calls, were against it, including most of the middle class (aside from those who aspire to be among the New York Times-enlightened chattering class). Even if a lot of people didn't consider the Federal Reserve and the implications of monetizing such a massive debt, they can still smell a rat, and they know that this was a case of socializing risk on the backs of the thrifty and responsible.

John McCain, maverick that he is, once again threw caution to the winds--polls be damned--flipped off Middle America, and sided with the political class (his natural consistency in any case). Call it straitjacket talk, if you will. In the political sense, this was certainly a stupid move, and Nuclear Jack probably hammered the last nail in his coffin. Had he come out against the bailout, any bailout, no way, no how, I think he might've won the election, assuming Obama stood pat on his pro-bailout position. He just might've found enough juice to get over the top. Now, I'll make book, there's no chance.

Stupid politically, the pro-bailout vote was evil as a matter of policy. You've got the fiat money aspect, the rewarding of irresponsible behavior and business practices, the politicians making the taxpayers pay off the ghosts of bad policy past, the political pandering.

Here's the whole thing: Is McCain (and for that matter Obama) totally unaware of history? Do they really believe what is written the insipid texts that are used in govt schools? Are they ignorant of the unintended consequences of bailouts, of the debasement of money, of the fact that the Great Depression lasted so long precisely because they (Hoover and FDR) intervened to keep prices high? Are they really that stupid?

To ask the question is to answer it. These cynical men are covering the short term, and when the bills come due and the consequences are felt down the line, they're betting on the come that they'll be able to foist the blame off on someone or something else, most likely the greed inherent in "deregulated" capitalism. And they're relying on the collective memory of the Amerikan sheeple heading south down Orwell's famous hole (with appropriate assists from the New York Times/Fox News/CNN/etc).

How many times in the last two weeks did you hear anyone mention the Fed's role in creating the problem, aside from Ron Paul or Jim DeMint (where did this guy come from?)? Who among the power elites was talking about monetary reform? Bush? Pelosi? McBama? Boehner? Don't they know about the Creature from Jekyll Island? Are these people really that stupid? Or are they members of the club, lying, deceitful, duplicitous, scheming, okay, I'll say it, evil SOB's, who just revel in their ability to get hoi polloi to believe just about anything.

I myself would say that being evil is worse than being stupid, but who wants to be ruled by either. And I think that's what we've got.

Thank God for the Internet, because it's helped us so much to discern that few of the emperors are wearing anything (which, btw, is why I predict a major clampdown on the net, sooner rather than later). The Internet has illuminated the dark machinations underlying the received wisdom on offer from the Establishment media. And once again, we must ask, are these guys stupid or are they evil?

Take my favorite lapdogs, the NY Times. Ten years after they framed the terms of Amerika's immoral intervention in Yugoslavia, they still haven't recognised the truth as being "fit to print." But whenever they have a chance to relevantly reiterate the distortions they were spoonfed by Clinton's State Dept, they're on it. Don't they know? The truth was coming out real time, during Bosnia and Kosovo, from independent journalists like Robert Fisk and John Laughland and Justin Raimondo, not to mention French television and Spanish forensic pathologists. The NYT wisdom was debunked long ago, yet no one in midtown Manhattan seems to have found out.

And then there was the Duke non-rape case. Any fantasy that Mike Nifong could conjer up to railroad those three lacrosse players was given prominent display in the Old Grey Lady, along with interesting sidebars on the pathologies and dangers presented by southern preppy lacrosse teams. Yet for some reason, the House of Sulzberger was always MIA whenever the Defense (and this was happening almost daily) came up with new revelations that blew huge holes in the prosecution. Had the Times reporters, like Al Gore at that Buddhist temple, oh so long ago, simply imbibed too much iced tea, and been in the loo when the relevant portions of the press conferences occurred.

Or were they simply tailoring the news, pushing an agenda, furthering the cause of the revolution (and not the one with the 3 in it)? Are the journalists of Amerika's paper of record just that vacuous or are they...well, you know.

Now, I admit, I like picking on the Times for reasons I need not go into here. Suffice it to say, they still kind of set the tone for the rest of the Establishment center left media. Remember, in the court of public opinion, it was pretty much the guys in bathrobes in their mothers' basements who got those three lacrosse players exonerated.

Is the Establishment media stupid or evil? Or both. You tell me. Either way, as a friend always tells me, we're doomed. I mean, if the politicians and the bankers and the the people who write the news--the official story at least--are that stupid or that evil, what becomes of us?

Myself, I'm getting a new bathrobe from Target before the hyper-inflation sets in.