intel-lacked

Powerline notes that Gary "Monkey Business" Hart tried to compare today's America with ancient Rome:

(Hart) argues that the Bush administration represents the end of the American republic, just as the accession of Augustus as Emperor of Rome signaled the end of the Roman republic. Here is Hart's extremely subtle analysis:

So much for the dates and names. The question is how Augustus became emperor. How did he go about finally ending a republic founded in 510 BC? The army, the courts, and religion. The keys to the creation of the Roman Empire.

Surely you can see it coming: George W. Bush has taken command of the U.S. Army and used it to assassinate his political opponents, like John Kerry, Howard Dean and Ned Lamont... Just like President Bush has taken over the churches and required that all citizens worship his ancestors - Bush 41! - as gods.

Gary Hart is sadly typical of the (DNC): an ignoramus masquerading as an intellectual.

For what it's worth, if a neutral observer were looking for a parallel to the Roman Empire, he might well find it in Hart's famous sex-booze-and-rock-and-roll debauchery aboard the Monkey Business, which led to his salutary retirement from public life.

Proposing a Mark Steyn TV talk show, Hugh Hewitt says:

Television has never attempted a program genuinely powered by intellect. I am not sure it would work, but a weekly hour long talk show hosted by Steyn and featuring the folks named above would be worth watching, especially if Steyn did not feel obliged to "balance" time each show but only over the season. I suspect it will never get made because television's "best and brightest" wouldn't understand and wouldn't enjoy not understanding.