You're right that it's an interesting paradox or self-contradiction on the part of the voter who votes under such circumstances. It has the character of a vote against voting. You know the word "vote" goes back to the same root as "voice"? It's speaking up against speech. As the last word or the final vote it still has a kind of suicidal logic. Of course, it's not how any (outside of maybe a few psychos, present company excluded) likely see it.

Also, the candidate and party aren't rejecting politics itself. They're (so far) rejecting basic assumptions regarding democratic debate and decision-making. They're all in favor of politics as acquisition and exploitation of power, though how workable their theory is in regard to this election or would turn out to be if they won is another question.

Yes, but the reason for that strategy is that they are mainly convinced that the electorate is imbecilic. If "the economy" or other conditions beyond their control work sufficiently to their advantage, they win. If not, they don't have a chance. They don't believe they can sell a positive message, assuming they even have one, to a broad electorate. It's just sit tight and be, not really express, a bare alternative.

Sure, I wonder - doesn't mean I have presumed anything about the actual prosecutability of the potential cases. Since you can't possibly believe that the victorious Romnoids will be producing indictments, or that any significant force in the Republican coalition will be looking for or pushing for them, or for that matter has ever pushed for them, what is the point of your argument? That the entire system is a corrupt charade and has been for a very long time? If so, why do you blame one set of billionaires more than another for getting while the getting was good? On what basis?

You have a very binary view of things. You ever notice? Why does viewing Adelson et al as somewhat contemptible necessarily imply a love of Obama's supporters? That, by all accounts, spending by the mad and secretive billionaires this time around will dwarf past spending remains troubling. B-psycho and I were just talking about it over on Elias Isquith's blog. Wherever you are politically, whether you feel contempt for Obama or not, the further de-legitimization of the electoral system as a whole in the eyes of a substantial portion of the electorate is problematic. Yes, I know the rightwing has its own theories on that score. That's not a plus.

The people who are bankrolling Mitt, especially Adelson, have always been standing indictments of the entire social, political, and economic system that creates and empowers them. Hard to say just how much deeper the indictment goes under current circumstances - whether it's attained a brand new level or is just a mere reiteration and minor permutation, whether it's more absurd salami from the same silly slicer, or a civilization-level tragedy.

Piece isn't remotely about foreign policy or even really about Obama for or against, but about a theory of the Romney candidacy I've written about before, but in this case taking a post of Daniel Larison's on its own terms. Campaign-ready, but irrelevant polemics on the "surrender of Egypt" (as if we owned it) and the (non-existent) "Iranian bomb" don't really have much to do with the question, unless you're under the bizarre impression that either issue figures significantly in the presidential election. Even if I lost my mind and decided your positions on Egypt and Iran were the correct ones, and somehow meaningful in the sense that you had workable and viable policy alternatives to go with your complaints - which you don't, and never have - their absence from the campaign would reinforce my thesis. Now, if Romney was out there insisting on an invasion of Egypt or putting the near-comatose Mubarak or his hated son in power, or insisting on war with Iran, then his campaign wouldn't be meaningless. It would just be down 30 points in the polls, at least, and even Karl Rove and his mad billionaires would find some other diversion,