The most frightening experience of my life

I stumbled into a live Tea Party chat this morning while looking for some updates in Wisconsin -- and stayed a few moments in morbid fascination as dozens of folks lauded Palin and Beck as the best MINDS in the country today and so forth and so on, and finally had to flee in a marriage of disbelief and despair. And as so often lately, I recalled the words of the late Senator from Oregon, Wayne Morse, the very words I use to close my one-man play about him, American Gadfly:

     So if you asked me, Wayne Morse, name

            the one thing in our country that you

            think will do more to strengthen

            American foreign policy in the next

            half century, you might be surprised

            at my reply. I would say, Do something

            to protect the educational standard of

            American boys and girls.  Do something

            to protect American brain power. 

            Because the only sure and lasting

            defense of peace is a highly educated

            and enlightened citizenry.

By which standard, that chat room gets a big fat F.