Good essay on Paul which, unintentionally, indicates how truly aligned the reps and dems truly are. Long, by internet generation standards. "Progressives and the Ron Paul fallacies" By Glenn Greenwald, for Salon "As Iâve written about before, Americaâs election season degrades mainstream political discourse even beyond its usual lowly state. The worst attributes of our political culture â obsession with trivialities, the dominance of horserace âreporting,â and mindless partisan loyalties â become more pronounced than ever. Meanwhile, the actually consequential acts of the U.S. Government and the permanent power factions that control it â covert endless wars, consolidation of unchecked power, the rapid growth of the Surveillance State and the secrecy regime, massive inequalities in the legal system, continuous transfers of wealth from the disappearing middle class to large corporate conglomerates â drone on with even less attention paid than usual. "Because most of those policies are fully bipartisan in nature, the election season â in which only issues that bestow partisan advantage receive attention â places them even further outside the realm of mainstream debate and scrutiny. For that reason, Americaâs elections ironically serve to obsfuscate political reality even more than it usually is. "This would all be bad enough if âelection seasonâ were confined to a few months the way it is in most civilized countries. But in America, the fixation on presidential elections takes hold at least eighteen months before the actual election occurs, which means that more than 1/3 of a Presidentâs term is conducted in the midst of (and is obscured by) the petty circus distractions of The Campaign. Thus, an unauthorized, potentially devastating covert war â both hot and cold â against Iran can be waged with virtually no debate, just as government control over the Internet can be inexorably advanced, because TV political shows are busy chattering away about Michele Bachmannâs latest gaffe and minute changes in Rick Perryâs polling numbers. "Then thereâs the full-scale sacrifice of intellectual honesty and political independence at the altar of tongue-wagging partisan loyalty. The very same people who in 2004 wildly cheered John Kerry â husband of the billionaire heiress-widow Teresa Heinz Kerry â spent all of 2008 mocking John McCainâs wealthy life courtesy of his millionaire heiress wife and will spend 2012 depicting Mitt Romneyâs wealth as proof of his insularity; conversely, the same people who relentlessly mocked Kerry in 2004 as a kept girly-man and gigolo for living off his wifeâs wealth spent 2008 venerating McCain as the Paragon of Manly Honor." "That combat experience is an important presidential trait was insisted upon in 2004 by the very same people who vehemently denied it in 2008, and vice-versa. Long-time associations with controversial figures and inflammatory statements from decades ago either matter or they donât depending on whom it hurts, etc. etc. During election season, even the pretense of consistency is proudly dispensed with; listening to these empty electioneering screeching matches for any period of time can generate the desire to jump off the nearest bridge to escape it. "Then thereâs the inability and/or refusal to recognize that a political discussion might exist independent of the Red v. Blue Cage Match. Thus, any critique of the Presidentâs exercise of vast power (an adversarial check on which our political system depends) immediately prompts bafflement (I donât understand the point: would Rick Perry be any better?) or grievance (youâre helping Mitt Romney by talking about this!!). The premise takes hold for a full 18 months â increasing each day in intensity until Election Day â that every discussion of the Presidentâs actions must be driven solely by oneâs preference for election outcomes (if you support the Presidentâs re-election, then why criticize him?)." Full article here: http://www.salon.com/2011/12/31/progressives_and_the_ron_paul_fallacies/singleton/