... that is "the core of the relationship" between the State Dept. and Blackwater, says a U.S. diplomat.

The lengths to which State will protect Blackwater extend to classifying public records. Those records were locked away once it was learned that the People, er, The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wanted to see them.

There is something inherently unAmerican in the idea that the US State Dept. will side with a private army --a quid pro quo protection agreement-- against and to the detriment of The People.

If that isn't enough insult and injury, we also learn today that now "both the Senate and the House of Representatives ... pass official, government censures" of citizen led dissent, aimed more specifically at the +3 million member grassroots organization MoveOn.

Digby notes one democrats justification for this betrayal:

Wisconsin Rep. David Obey, a veteran Democrat, recounted how he left the Republican Party during the era of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis., and said that lawmakers have an obligation to criticize their allies as well as their enemies when they go too far.

'I have got an obligation to be equally upset when that kind of juvenile debate emanates from the left,' Obey said.

Digby rightly points out that this jackass of a Representative has it exactly backwards. McCarthyism is all about suppressing dissent.

The audacity of hope that this slide toward oblivion can be reversed is becoming more burdensome by the day. 2008 is looking mighty bleak indeed.