The Supreme Court's ruling today in the Hamdan case wasn't merely a defeat for the Bush administration's system of military tribunals for the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. As ThinkProgress describes, the majority's explicit rejection of broad presidential powers claimed by the White House to be inherent in the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) also imperils Bush's dubious arguments for the illegal NSA domestic spying program.

The challenge for President Bush and his allies is clear. As I wrote back in February ("The Republicans' Constitutional Crisis"), the White House has offered a two-pronged defense in claiming that the 2001 AUMF and the wartime Commander-in-Chief powers give President Bush the statutory and constitutional basis for sidestepping the FISA process for the NSA's domestic electronic surveillance. With the AUMF argument in tatters following Hamdan, the Bush administration will have no alternative but to argue that FISA itself is unconstitutional. And that, politically and legally, is a losing proposition for the President.

For the full analysis, see "The Republicans' Constitutional Crisis," reprinted in full below.

Tom Delay may have left Congress in disgrace, but the U.S. Supreme Court presented the former Majority Leader with a parting gift on Wednesday. By a 7-2 vote, the Court essentially endorsed Delay's unprecedented Texas Congressional redistricting plan that delivered six new House seats to the Republicans in 2004. The only minor setback for the GOP came in a separate 5-4 ruling that Texas' new 23rd district violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act with its suspicious gerrymandering shifting 100,000 Hispanic voters elsewhere.

The Supremes decision today opens the doors for serial bouts of redistricting by either party when control of state legislatures changes hands. Throwing out the previous practice of revising district boundaries only after each 10 year sentence, Justice Kennedy's majority opinion opened the floodgates for partisan map-making, stating flatly, "We reject the statewide challenge to Texas redistricting as an unconstitutional political gerrymander." Following Texas' lead, Republican majorities in Colorado and Georgia are already pursuing mid-decade district adjustments.

But a separate ruling in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry did serve to highlight the growing controversy over the extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The Court ordered the redrawing of Texas' 23rd and adjacent districts, which it claims effectively thwart the ability of Hispanic voters to select representatives of their choice:

"[The] troubling blend of politics and race - and the resulting vote dilution of a group that was beginning to achieve (the law's) goal of overcoming prior electoral discrimination - cannot be sustained."

The issue of "pre-clearance" (regarding the process by which the Justice Department must pre-approve new voting and elections laws from 9 Southern states) is central to the effort by House Republicans to block the extension of the 1965 Act. As with the Georgia voter ID card program, the Attorney General had earlier overruled career Justice Department staffers who had concluded that the Texas map violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act by diminishing minority representation. While DOJ's Civil Rights Division would not grant the necessary "pre-clearance" required for electoral changes in key southern states, the Bush White House had no such qualms. As I've written previously, while President Bush and Attorney General Gonzales have publicly called for the renewal of the Voting Rights Act, they are working to undermine it behind the scenes.

The fate of the 1965 Voting Rights Act remain uncertain, there can be no doubt that Tom Delay is smiling. After all, Delay got away with it all - an unheard of second redistricting in two years, the FAA surveillance of Democratic legislators, and possibly even the money-laundering to help TRMPAC win the 2002 mid-terms in Texas.

For more background on the Texas case and Tom Delay's insidious role in it, see "GOP Scandals Converge in Texas Redistricting Case."

This is just a quick reminder that there are only three days left in Perrspectives' "What Does 'GOP' Stand For?" Contest.

Hundreds of people of all political stripes have already sent in their three-word definitions of the acronym "GOP." From "Grabbing Our Pensions" and "Gays On Pitchforks" to "Greed Over Patriotism" and "Going Off to Prison" (just to name a few), Americans of good will are rebranding the party of Bush, Rove, Frist and Delay.

Get your entry in by June 30, 2006 to have a chance to win an iPod Shuffle, a $50 Amazon.com gift certificate, a Conservative Threat Level t-shirt and other great prizes.

On Monday, billionaire financier Warren Buffett made two important contributions to the public good. First, he announced a staggering gift of $30 billion of his fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Perhaps more important for America's future, Buffett came out swinging in defense of the estate tax.

During his press conference, Buffett offered a strong progressive argument in support of the estate tax:

"I would hate to see the estate tax gutted. It's in keeping with the idea of equality of opportunity in this country, not giving incredible head starts to certain people who were very selective about the womb from which they emerged.

I'm not an enthusiast for dynastic wealth when there are 6 billion people who have much poorer lives. I can't think of anything that's more counter to a democracy that dynastic wealth. The idea that you win the lottery the moment you're born: It just strikes me as outrageous."

Outrageous is a good word for it. Since 2001, President Bush and the Republican leadership have pushing to eliminate the so-called "death tax," a levy paid by only 1% of American families. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities estimates abolition of the estate tax would burn a $1 trillion hole in the U.S. budget over 10 years. A supposed compromise version passed by the House GOP this week, which would raise the eligible estate size while cutting the rate from 45% to the capital gains rate of 15%, would be nearly as destructive. CBPP forecasts that the House bill would cost American taxpayers $750 billion in lost revenue and increased interest payments on the national debt.

For more background on the devastating budgetary impact of the Republican war on the estate tax, see the excellent CBPP slide presentation. For a discussion about the role of inheritance taxes as one of the cornerstones of a progressive society, see my piece, "Estate Tax or Dynasty Dividend."

June has been a busy month for the Avenging Angel, smiter of conservative miscreants.

The fun and frolic starts with Rush Limbaugh, the face of right wing radio and prescription drug fraud. On Monday, Rush once again ran afoul of the law over his pill predilection. Only weeks after doing a deal over charges of doctor shopping for the painkiller oxycontin, Limbaugh was stopped at the Miami airport for possession of Viagra without a prescription. Like Bob Dole before him, the Angel suggests, Rush is just another dysfunctional member of the conservative movement.

In the Southwest, Don Goldwater, the nephew of the late Arizona Senator earned the ire of the Avenging Angel and fellow Arizona Republicans including John McCain for his illegal immigrant "tent city" proposal this week. Goldwater, a gubernatorial candidate, was quoted as endorsing the use of illegal aliens to "labor in the construction of a wall and to clean the areas of the Arizona desert that they're polluting." Extremism in the defense of extremism, the Angel ponders, is no virtue.

Back in Congress, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert faces the wrath of the Avenging Angel for redefining pork (so to speak). In a sweetheart land deal that makes Whitewater look like a half-off sale at Wal Mart, Hastert pocketed a $1.5 million profit by selling property in his district just four months after securing $207 million in federal funds to build a highway nearby. Hastert, the Angel muses, may yet become the GOP poster boy for pigs at the trough.

Speaking of Banana Republicans, California Congressman Jerry Lewis joins Tom Delay on the growing list of Republicans smote by the Avenging Angel for funneling interest group money to PACs or non-profits run by family members. Lewis' step-daughter received almost $45,000, a third of all funds raised by her Small Biz Tech PAC, from lobbyist and former Lewis staffer Letitia White. White also shills for Trident Systems, which has pocketed $40 million in federal funds from Lewis' Appropriations Committee.

For a complete roster of Right's guilty and still-to-be punished, visit the Avenging Angel.

The past two weeks have seen a changing of the guard atop the Top 10 GOP Sound Bites list.

With the contentious Congressional debate over the path forward in Iraq, the fire and brimstone Republican smash hit "Cut and Run" vaulted to the top of the charts. Performed by George Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Ken Mehlman and John Boehner with a chorus of hundreds on Capitol Hill, "Cut and Run" easily outpaced the new #2, "No Civil Liberties (When You're Dead)." That cut by Senators Pat Roberts, John Cornyn and Jeff Sessions is just the latest ditty from the "This is Wire Tap" sound track to move up the Bushboard list.

Dropping off the Top 10 list was the Iran war drumbeat and April's #1, "Wild Speculation" by George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. Also falling off the charts was Scott McClellan's dance mix, "(Leaking Is In) The Public Interest."

To see previous Top 10 GOP Sound Bites lists, visit the Perrspectives Image Gallery.

Just days after President Bush and his Republican allies in Congress lambasted their Democratic opponents for supposedly wanting to "cut and run" in Iraq, the Iraqi government and American military leadership in Baghdad essentially endorsed the Democratic position to set a timeline to draw down U.S. troops.

As Newsweek first reported on Saturday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki endorsed a timetable for American withdrawal as part of 28-point national reconciliation plan submitted to the Iraqi parliament today. While Maliki proposed no final deadline date for the final pull out of coalition troops, his plan includes an aggressive roadmap for Iraqi security forces assuming greater control.

Meanwhile, General George Casey, the top American commander in Iraq, proposed a phased withdrawal plan of his own during a classified Pentagon briefing this week. His timetable calls for reducing the number of American combat brigades from 14 to 5 by the end of December 2007. (American troop levels would still be sizable, as training, logistics and air support teams would remain in country.)

While this clear consensus on conditions-based timeline should be seen shameless hypocrisy from the White House and the Pentagon, it may instead offer a coup for President Bush. Over the Washington Monthly, Kevin Drum rightly notes the strategic choice- and the political opportunity - for President Bush:

President Bush would be flatly insane to turn this opportunity down. It's precisely the kind of request he needs in order to declare victory, assure everyone that the job is close to done, and make it clear that he respects Iraqi sovereignty and doesn't plan to occupy their country forever. There would be no loss of face and no loss of national honor.

Conversely, if he resists it, it would be hard not to conclude that he was doing so solely because a "broad, conditions-based timetable" also happens to be exactly the position of the vast majority of the Democratic Party - and he would rather chew off his own big toe than do anything that might turn down the volume on the domestic partisan jihad that's been so politically successful for Republicans ever since 9/11. I guess we'll find out soon.

Sadly, the disgusting and irresponsible rhetoric from Karl Rove and the Republicans last week should make it clear which route the President will choose. Kicking off his post-Fitzgerald gloating, Rove in a New Hampshire address on June 13 said of the Democrats, "When it gets tough, they fall back on that party's old platform of cutting and running." President Bush echoed the John Boehner's party line last Monday, "It is important to have members of the United States Congress who will not wave the white flag of surrender in this war on terror." Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, rejecting two different Democratic timetable proposals, preached "surrender is not a solution," adding that "if we break our promise and cut and run, as some would have us do, the implications could be catastrophic." While House Speaker Dennis Hastert claimed setting a withdrawal date "would be to cut and run and wait for [terrorists] to regroup and bring the terror back to our shores," Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell parroted, "Do we want to send a message to the terrorists that we're going to run?"

Some, like Michigan Democratic Senator Carl Levin, believes President Bush will try to have it both ways, seeking to paint the Democrats as weak on defense while shamelessly drawing down U.S. troop levels in Iraq in time for the 2006 mid-term elections. Two-faced, perhaps, but it wouldn't be the first time.

The Black Stars of Ghana brought the World Cup journey of the United States to abrupt end with a convincing 2 -1 win in Nuremberg today. For me, perhaps the most memorable moment of Team USA's disappointing showing this year occurred not on the field, but while reading Matt Weiland's reflections in the New Republic on growing up a soccer fan in America.

But first, a few obligatory comments on Team USA. The loss to Ghana capped a 2006 World Cup run that showed none of the risk-taking elegance of the U.S. sprint to the quarterfinals in 2002. No doubt, the heroic American effort in the 1-1 draw against Italy provided some redemption after the catastrophic 3-0 pasting by the Czechs. But throughout, Team USA seemed mechanical and tentative, vulnerable to counterattack and, in a nutshell, simply not dangerous with the ball. While the U.S. has produced world-class goalkeepers in Casey Keller and Tim Howard, the American side has yet to feature a first-rate finisher like Germany's Klose, Italy's Toni or Brazil's now bloated Ronaldo. Only Clint Dempsey, with his glorious 43d minute strike against Ghana and his darting runs along the right wing versus Italy, seemed able to recapture the echoes of 2002.

While the early exit for Team USA fell far short of expectations, Weiland's piece in the New Republic brought back memories of happier days. He described his love affair with the now defunct North American Soccer League (NASL) and his 1970's team of choice, the Minnesota Kicks. He wrote fondly of Ace Ntsoelengoe, the star South African midfielder whose international career was blighted by the apartheid era. (Sadly, Ntsoelengoe, who helped bring the 2010 World Cup to South Africa, died last month.) And Weiland still exults in the crushing 9-2 defeat his beloved Kicks inflicted on the hated New York Cosmos in the 1978 playoffs.

Weiland's American soccer memoir struck a personal chord for me, as I experienced the mirror image of it. While he was a Minnesota die-hard, I was a huge Cosmos fan, listening on radio, watching on TV and often going to the Meadowlands to see Pele, Beckenbauer and the often infuriating Chinaglia. But my favorite was Jomo Sono, a South African who, like Ntsoelengoe, came to the U.S. to pursue his career. In the 2002 World Cup, Sono coached the South African squad.

As for that 1978 playoff, I remember Minnesota's 9-2 annihilation all too well. But the NASL playoff format then featured a two-game home and home series to be decided by a half-hour "mini-game" followed by a shootout in case of a draw. And after the Kicks' slaughter in Minneapolis, the series returned to Giants stadium, where the Cosmos got their revenge in a 4-0 blanking. After a scoreless 30 minutes to decide the series, the teams went to a shootout (which in the NASL commenced at the 35 yard line). Ultimately, the Cosmos prevailed in a thriller, with Beckenbauer scoring and Brazilian Carlos Alberto lobbing the winner over the keeper's head with a deceptive flick of his foot. I can still remember my best friend's father yelling at us to keep it down after our noisy celebration next to the radio.

That was 28 years ago. Hopefully, we can all look forward to better times for American soccer.

This weekend, Democrats in Congress moved quickly to oust Louisiana Representative William Jefferson from his seat on the powerful House Way and Means Committee. Facing strong opposition from the Congressional Black Caucus, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi showed that Democrats would be quick to punish ethical transgressors within their ranks. The contrast with the Republican culture of corruption could not more stark.

Jefferson, who housed $90,000 in cold cash from a Nigerian bagman in his freezer, is the exception that proves the rule. Inextricably linked to an unprecedented reign of bribery, influence peddling and dirty deals in Congress, in the White House, in state houses and on K Street, the Republican Party has protected its wrongdoers by blocking investigations, denying access to records and even politicizing the definition of crime itself.

This weekend, the United States launched "Operation Mountain Thrust" in Afghanistan. Featuring 10,000 U.S. troops and American aircraft targeting the peaks along the border with Pakistan, the spring offensive seeks to decimate a resurgent and emboldened Taliban. Sadly, that would be the same Taliban President Bush declared non-existent two years ago.

This weekend's fighting in eastern Afghanistan may have killed 90 guerillas, but it also served to highlight President Bush's penchant for prematurely declaring victory in his wars fought on the cheap. During a September 27, 2004 campaign event in Ohio, Bush to the cheers of "four more years" proclaimed:

"And as a result of the United States military, Taliban no longer is in existence. And the people of Afghanistan are now free. In other words when you say something as President you better make it clear so everybody understands what you're saying, and you better mean what you say. And I meant what I said."

As it turns out, not so much. White House Press Secretary Tony Snow on Sunday, who recently referred to the 2,500 American war dead in Iraq as "just a number," set the record straight. Fast-forwarding from his boss' election-year crowing, Snow admitted:

"I think what the Taliban is doing - and it's predictable - is that they are trying to test in the south, where the U.S. forces are handing over to NATO...But A, it's predictable, and B, in the encounters, as you know, the Taliban fighters have overwhelmingly been losing. Now, I think it is predictable...you can expect there to be pushback by the Taliban."

Of course, this is not George W. Bush's first bout of premature emancipation. On May 1, 2003, Bush stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln in front of a massive banner declaring "Mission Accomplished" and announced, "In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." But by June 2004, the President was forced to acknowledge reality, admitting, "this mission isn't easy, and it will not be accomplished overnight."

When Bush made those arrogant boasts of lightning victory, his popularity was stratospheric. Perhaps that arrogance is just another explanation for why his poll ratings came - and went.

There's an old, mean-spirited joke that tornados represent divine retribution against trailer parks. If so, then Fox News is in danger of losing members of its key demographic, according to Fox News host and political contributor Cal Thomas.

Appearing on Fox New Watch this weekend, Thomas had this to say about the turmoil at rival MSNBC and his own network:

"All of them are trying to copy FOX News now to be honest. Many of them are doing tabloid, more big-lipped blondes and all this kind of stuff. There's only so much of that trailer trash pie to go around."

If history is any guide, Thomas' fellow goose-steppers at Fox won't be so pleased with his temporary bout of honesty. As Crooks and Liars detailed in February, Bill O'Reilly called for Thomas' New Watch colleague Neal Gabler to be fired after Gabler criticized the laughable "War on Christmas" outcry perpetrated by O'Reilly, John Gibson and Sean Hannity.

Thomas, of course, is an old school, crypto-conservative. But there is another old saying that claims the truth shall set you free. Cal Thomas may be about to find out.

That's for you to answer in the Perrspectives "What Does GOP Stand For?" Contest.

The contest is simple. Tell us what you think the three-letter acronym "GOP" now stands for. With the one-time budget balancers now the budget busters and the isolationists now nation builders, what does GOP mean? Has the "Grand Old Party" become "God's Own Party?" Greed Over Patriotism? Gauging Oil Prices? Gays On Pitchforks? Got Only Probation? Guilty On Plame?

First prize for the most creative, original, irreverent or entertaining GOP definition is an iPod Shuffle. Second place earns you a $50 Amazon gift certificate. And the third place finisher will receive a Perrspectives "Conservative Threat Level" t-shirt.

Use the Feedback Form or Comments area to submit your entries. Vote early and vote often (after all, it's what the Republicans would do). The contest closes on June 30, 2006. Winners will fittingly be announced on July 4th.

NOTE: The DailyKos community is weighing in with their entries. Kossacks should be sure to comment here or use the Feedback Form so we can contact potential winners.

In the Bible, Jesus cured the blind. In a bizarre White House Rose Garden press conference yesterday, President Bush chose to taunt them instead.

During a rambling session with reporters following his Baghdad pop-in, Bush chided Los Angeles Times reporter Peter Wallsten for wearing sunglasses during the press conference:

THE PRESIDENT: Are you going to ask that question with shades on?

WALLSTEN: I can take them off.

THE PRESIDENT: I'm interested in the shade look, seriously.

WALLSTEN: All right, I'll keep it, then.

THE PRESIDENT: For the viewers, there's no sun.

WALLSTEN: I guess it depends on your perspective.

Unfortunately for the adolescent Bush, Wallsten is legally blind. The President, who himself suffers from a verbal incontinence some have attributed to dyslexia, poked fun at a man afflicted with Stargardt's disease, a type of macular degeneration that leads to progressive vision loss. Mercifully, Bush the compassionate conservative had the baseline decency to call Wallsten later to apologize (an apology Wallsten gracefully rejected as unnecessary).

This childish episode is not Bush's first attempt at comedy at the expense of the disabled. As I wrote back in May, during a trip to Florida to pitch his Medicare prescription plan, Bush joked to a man in a wheelchair, "you look mighty comfortable." Bush the Younger might do well to remember his father's words upon signing the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, "let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down."

During the 2000 campaign, candidate George W. Bush claimed his favorite philosopher was Christ, because, as he put it, "he changed my heart." As it turns out, not so much.

On the House floor Thursday, Democratic Congressman Rahm Emmanuel threw down the gauntlet and challenged his GOP colleagues to repudiate the bilious words of Ann Coulter. But as should be clear by now, they simply can't. Whether the issue concerns gay Americans, 9/11, abortion, judicial appointments or political corruption, a seamless continuum of hate runs from today's governing conservatism through to its most extreme proponents. And that means the Congressional GOP differs only in degree - not in kind - from the cartoonish and sometimes criminal likes of Ann Coulter, Fred Phelps or Eric Rudolph.

Emmanuel's comments on the House floor laid bare the Republicans' hypocrisy:

"I must ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Does Ann Coulter speak for you when she suggests poisoning Supreme Court justices or slanders the 9/11 widows? If not, speak now. Your silence allows her to be your spokesman."

When it comes to the rights of gay Americans and the battle of marriage equality, for example, it is only a short hop from President Bush to crusading homophobic Kansas minister Fred Phelps. Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, you'll recall, organizes virulent anti-gay protests at U.S. military funerals, complete with signs such as "God Hates Fags" and "Thank God for IEDs," deaths it deems divine punishment for America's tolerance of gay lifestyles.

June 8th will be remembered as a good day for freedom loving peoples everywhere. In Iraq, the brutal terrorist and Al Qaeda mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. air strike. And in Washington, the indicted former House Majority leader and K Street mastermind Tom Delay bid adieu to Congress.

But while Zarqawi went out with a bang, Delay hardly went out with a whimper. In his House valedictory of venom, viciousness and deceit, an unapologetic Delay showered himself with praise and his foes with invective. Before returning to Sugarland, Texas to agitate for the reintroduction of DDT, Delay the former exterminator derided liberalism as a philosophy "with voracious appetite for growth." Delay, perhaps the chief storm trooper in the Republican culture war, defiantly declared, "You show me a nation without partisanship, and I'll show you a tyranny." After his address, Delay promised to continue tormenting Democrats, saying "I would imagine that I would be their worst nightmare."

For the text of Tom Delay's bilious speech and all the news, legal documents and timelines of his indictment and corrupt record in Congress, visit the Perrspectives Tom Delay Resource Center.

The flood of revelations about the alleged U.S. war crime and cover-up at Haditha has understandably clouded the image of America's fighting men and women. Two recent but underreported stories will help restore your faith in the goodness and humanity of our troops.

Just before Memorial Day, Staff Sgt. Phillip Trackey gave his Purple Heart medal to 13 year-old Fatima Faisal. Faisal, a student in Camillus, New York, had won a school contest for writing thank you letters to U.S. troops. Trackey, who was awarded the medal for shoulder and head wounds he suffered in Baghdad in January 2005, said:

"It's important what these children do for us in sending these letters. The letters mean so much to us. So I thought this was a big way of giving something back to them."

Trackey, who is based at nearby Fort Drum, spontaneously pinned his Purple Heart on Faisal during the school's awards ceremony. Afterwards, Ms. Faisal said, "I'm touched. I'm speechless. This is the sweetest thing ever."

Fatima Faisal's isn't the only story of the courageous American troops honoring civilians for their work and support. One week after Staff Sgt. Trackey's act of grace in upstate New York, an American soldier at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany presented his Purple Heart to grievously injured CBS Iraq reporter Kimberly Dozier. As a CBS spokesperson described it:

"A young American soldier came up to Kimberly's brother Michael and told him that he had met Kimberly in Iraq two years ago after he had been wounded with shrapnel in his arm. The soldier had his Purple Heart with him, and he told Michael that he'd like Kimberly to have it because, he said, she's suffered as much as any soldier. That Purple Heart is now beside Kimberly's bed."

There can be no question that the massacre at Haditha is an abomination. But these purple heartwarming stories should remind us that it is the exception to the rule when it comes to the courage, grace and selflessness of volunteer American troops who fight in our name.

June 6, 2006 (6/6/06) is the 62nd anniversary of D-Day, one of the most glorious - and bloody days - in American military history. But as the American Prospect reports, for evangelical leaders close to President Bush such as Texas Pastor John Hagee, the number 666 has another important meaning for the future of the United States. 666 is the number to be borne by the Anti-Christ in the coming battle of Armageddon, which if Hagee has his way, will fought against Iran.

As I wrote back in May ("Bush, Iran and the Second Coming"), key figures in the radical religious right see Israel and end-of-times conflict with Iran as the fulfillment of biblical prophesy contained in the Book of Revelation. (That piece also highlighted a parallel end-times bellicosity surrounding the return of the Mahdi among President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Shiite clerics of Iran.)

But Hagee is at the bleeding edge of a Christian Zionist movement seeking to accelerate the Second Coming of Christ and the final battle in Israel. Since the 1990's, Hagee and his group CUFI (Christians United for Israel) has tried without success to breed the "red heifer," the perfect calf that will signal the Second Coming." As Sarah Posner writes in the American Prospect, "for Hagee's new project - agitating for war with Iran - his influence over Washington is less important than his influence over his audience." His book Jerusalem Countdown sold over 500,000 copies. And as Posner reports, Hagee is not alone:

Hagee calls pastors "the spiritual generals of America" an appropriate phrase given his reliance on them to rally their troops behind his message. The CUFI board of directors includes the Reverend Jerry Falwell, former Republican presidential candidate and religious right activist Gary Bauer, and George Morrison, pastor to the 8,000-member Faith Bible Chapel in Arvada, Colorado, and chairman of the board of Promise Keepers. Rod Parsley, the Ohio televangelist who is rapidly becoming a major political figure in the Christian right, signed on as a regional director.

Just how much influence the likes of Hagee have over President Bush and his foreign policy team is open to debate. But what seems clear, as I wrote previously, is that the most extreme religious elements in Iran and the U.S. alike seek to accelerate the End of Times. And as their positions over the Iranian nuclear program harden, Presidents Bush and Ahmadinejad may have more in common than they know.

NOTE: The American Prospect article "Pastor Strangelove" requires a subscription. For more background, see my piece "Bush, Iran and the Second Coming," here.

On Friday, President Bush sent the only remaining popular member of his White House team to address the UN General Assembly meeting on HIV/AIDS. Just days after a UN study reported progress in slowing the spread of AIDS, a smiling First Lady Laura Bush demonstrated why her husband's United States may still be the biggest barrier to defeating the global scourge.

A sure sign of the lack of seriousness of the Bush administration was the make up of the American delegation itself. The packed conference attracted the presidents of numerous African countries and featured the foreign ministers of France and Brazil. In stark contrast, the United States sent the First Lady, who fronted a delegation featuring Bush cronies, among them Bush daughter Barbara, abstinence peddler and Bush AIDS advisor Anita Smith as well as Baptist Minister Herb Lusk of White House faith-based initiative fame.

The conference's reaction to the address by Laura Bush and the positions of the U.S. could be described as one of shock and awe. The United States balked at boosting global funding from $8 billion to $22 billion annually. The American team struck language from conference documents describing "men who have sex with men" or "sex workers," substituting the meaningless phrase "vulnerable groups." Even more disturbing, the United States joined Egypt, Sudan and other members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in blocking public references to drug addicts, prostitutes and homosexuals in event papers.

The typically smiling Mrs. Bush blithely ignored these and other controversies and contradictions central to the American policy of AIDS. The First Lady told the assembled delegates:

"In parts of sub-Saharan Africa, new data shows that Africa's ABC model of AIDS prevention has led to dramatic declines in HIV infection rates in young men and women...All people need to know how AIDS is transmitted, and every country has an obligation to educate its citizens. This is why every country must also improve literacy, especially for women and girls, so that they can make wise choices that will keep them healthy and safe."

But when it comes to the ABC's of AIDS (abstinence, be faithful, condoms), the United States seems to have forgotten the alphabet. Almost from its inception, Bush's $15 billion AIDS initiative PEPFAR (the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) has come with conditions attached. Bowing to the religious right, the White House has steered over $1 billion to religious groups stressing abstinence and undermining condom education and distribution programs. It's no wonder a defensive Laura Bush was forced to defend her husband's wildly unrealistic focus on abstinence during her last visit to Africa in January:

"I'm always a little bit irritated when I hear the criticism of abstinence, because abstinence is absolutely 100 per cent effective in eradicating a sexually transmitted disease."

On Friday, though, it was UN Secretary General Kofi Annan who was irritated. He angrily told the delegates that if they "don't step up the fight drastically," the HIV/AIDS pandemic could become the "the single greatest reversal in the history of human development." He had a clear message for Laura Bush to take back to her husband, "This fight requires every president, every parliamentarian to say, 'AIDS stops with me.'"

Laura Bush no doubt smiled.

PBS this week aired "The Age of AIDS," perhaps the most powerful and devastating documentary on American television in years. The two part, four-hour special featured interviews and history from six continents and over a dozen countries detailing the path, the politics and the pain of 25 years of the AIDS pandemic.

Perhaps the most disturbing thread running through "The Age of AIDS" is the myopic complicity of the American radical right in the needless death and suffering of thousands worldwide. Through sins of commission and omission, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Jesse Helms and other champions of the Christian right helped ensure the spread of an unfolding global tragedy.

As the AIDS epidemic exploded across the United States to infect 250,000 Americans, President Reagan remained silent, wallet closed. A disease deemed to impact only gay Americans was no concern of the administration or the Republican leadership. On the very day in April 1983 that the CDC declared "the inadequate funding to date has seriously restricted our work and has presumably deepened the invasion of this disease into the American population," Reagan's Secretary of Health and Human Services Margaret Heckler pronounced that no additional funding was necessary.