At this point, would it surprise anyone to find out that Joseph McCarthy took money from Russia?

He destroyed a lot of good people, sowed distrust and chaos, damaged the credibility of the U.S. throughout the world. Sound familiar? In the end he was ony stopped by the last decent Republican on planet Earth, Dwight David Eisenhower.

These days you can drag a fifty-ruble note through any Republican social club and find somebody willing to do anything or say anything, anything at all. It's become clear that conservatism is purely situational power politics -- there is no ideology, no plan, no philosophy -- just cash-hungry operatives far and wide.

I think it might have always been this way, and reading Tony Judt's 'Postwar' has really clued me in to the oft-used tactics of Russian intelligence -- divide the left, co-opt the right, and drive the chaos in such a way that a vulnerable nation falls to pieces and even perhaps into the Russian pocket, Jagshemash!

Russian leadership has done this since 1917 because they have been the quintessentially insecure nation, generally powerless and far more focused on machismo and maintaining a stagnant and inefficient social order than they are on learning how to do anything real. They talk a big game but suffer from brain-drain and dominance culture, so they have to cheat. It's just a fact of history.

I'm starting to wonder if McCarthy's antics weren't designed to throw everyone off the scent. The liberals and artists that might have had a passing dalliance with the Communists weren't capable of treason because they possessed a conscience; conservatives and libertarians, however -- whatever it takes, whatever they have to say, as long as someone pays for the champagne. That's now a Fact.

The best part is, they come cheap. Just like the discredited right-wing parties of the fourties and fifties in Eastern Europe, their expensive tastes and repressed sexual urges and utter lack of a moral compass make them perfect prey for a well-thought-out Ratfcking strategy. Mitch McConnell only cost them 2.5 million -- and look at the damage he's done. In the end his actions will probably kill more Americans than a twenty million dollar warhead would have, without blowback, without Mutually Assured Destruction, without the radiation drift.

War On The Cheap, using old-timey intelligence techniques honed in the Baltic States and Ukraine -- talk about your Asymmetrical Judo. A few hundred million bought them a herd of 'christian patriots', and a big stick to stir the muck with. In fact, everything's covered in muck now. Great Success.

Joseph McCarthy, a Russian operative? Maybe, maybe not.

Fits the profile, though. Like a goddamned glove.