We have been most remiss in not linking people to this important story by John Gorenfield: Ambassadaor de Sade.  (From Alternet, via Mark Levine via Buzzflash.) It's a chilling account of how cruelty and corruption always rise to the top, like heavy scum, in the Bush Administration. This is a horror story that spreads its tentacles deep into the power structure of the American elite, and shows the preciptious decline in honor, morality, reason and compassion in American society under the relentless pressure of the right-wing money/ideology machine. Gorenfield's reporting is, as always, vigorous and piercing. Excerpts just won't do; read the whole thing.