Appears to me this is just a reminder of the preacher/priest/etc. being put back behind the pulpit....like maybe the way it used to be. Soothes the soul.

and the wistful tone is music to my ears.

But the fundamentalist base is one thing, the levers which move it are entirely separate.

Maybe a better model for me to offer, chickens come from eggs and I'm not counting votes yet since it's the embedded lobbyists that worry me.

from Martial Law?

[...] Lest you think the only patriots left are dead guys, you may recall, last week, a Democratic congressman from California, Brad Sherman's, startling revelation that a few of his colleagues in the House were warned that if they voted down the bailout measure, martial law would be imposed in America.

Now a San Diego private attorney general, Paul Andrew Mitchell, intends to pursue a criminal investigation into whether the implied threat of martial law constitutes conspiracy "to engage in a pattern of racketeering activities," or extortion. Whether this lawsuit has teeth, or is found to be frivilous, in the end, isn't really what's important here. One cannot, after all, yell "fire" in a crowded movie theatre, with impunity, so why should anyone be allowed to yell "police state" in the halls of Congress without consequence?

As you know, the power to suspend habeas corpus is a legislative one, and the President must be authorized by legislators to remand that right. A state of martial law, however, would mean the suspension of all civil liberties, giving the military direct rule. Martial law can result from war, social calamities, natural disasters, stolen elections, but when private citizens (lobbyists?) threaten members of Congress with the possibility that troops will be redeployed from Iraq to Main Street if certain preconditions aren't met sets a dangerous precedent. Why would a private citizen, or lobbyist, make this kind of threat? [...]

"So your party is the only party that can save the country from the mess that your party created?" - attrib. Jon Stewart