Former President George Bush is acting strangely these days, as if he may
have something to hide.

On April 12 The London Times reported that Bush had written a letter
supporting former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, whom British
authorities have detained since October while trying to decide whether to
let a Spanish magistrate extradite and try him for crimes against humanity.

"That was the best argument same-sex marriage advocates had: 'Where were you when no- fault divorce went through?' " said Allan Carlson, a conservative scholar who runs a family studies center in Rockford, Ill. "Any thoughtful defender of marriage has to say, 'You're right. We were asleep at the switch in the '60s and '70s.' "

In Ohio, the reality of the recount is beginning to sink in, and local governments aren’t happy about it. The Associated Press ran a story Monday afternoon in which its reporter quoted the incoming president of the Ohio Association of Election Officials, Keith Cunningham. “The inference is that Ohio election officials will not count every vote,” said the man who is currently head of the Board of Elections in Allen County (that’s the Lima area, northwest of Columbus). “That’s just insulting; it’s frivolous and simply harassment.”

What did the Fascist regimes in Italy, Germany, and Spain have in common? They consisted of a highly militarized state, backed by corporation and a wealthy elite, that rose to power through a false populism that exploited the public’s fear of foreigners and “moral degenerates.” This precisely defines the formula that Karl Rove designed to consolidate the Bush administration’s power in the recent election.