Their almost uniformly hysterical response to President Obama's decision to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other 9/11 terrorists to New York to face charges in federal court illustrates this vividly.

John Boehner, the top Republican in the House, called it "further evidence that the White House is reverting to a dangerous pre-9/11 mentality." Rudy Giuliani went on national television to warn that residents of New York - his own city - would be at increased risk because of it. And John Shadegg, a leader of the most conservative faction of House Republicans, actually wondered how Mayor Bloomberg (who has endorsed Obama's move) will feel "when it's your daughter that's kidnapped at school by a terrorist?"

The G.O.P.'s heat on this issue stems partly from the Islamophobia that has infected the right. This past week alone has brought us Bill O'Reilly noting that "we can't kill all the Muslims" and Don Manzullo, a Republican congressman from Illinois, calling Islam "a savage religion."

But it's impossible to ignore the crude, cynical political calculations that are also at work.

On the issue of the Mohammed trial, the G.O.P. has identified an issue that - at least in the short term - is a political winner. It's only too easy to stoke public fear an anxiety about the 46 million things (real or imagined) that could go wrong by bringing five deadly terrorists to the largest city in America for a high-profile trial.

Already, polls show that blue state New Yorkers are split on the matter, with about as many opposing the trial plan as support it. Imagine what the numbers are in swing and red states. And imagine what they'll be - in New York and around the country - after a few weeks of Shadegg-esque fear-mongering.

There are, of course, rational answers to all of the right's objections about the trial. Like the fact that terrorists have been tried in federal courts many times before and have been convicted at a rate of about 90 percent. Or that a terrorist incident has never coincided with one of these trials. Or that New York itself has actually played host to terrorist trials before. Or that even Republicans - like Giuliani - celebrated the 2006 federal conviction of the so-called 20^th hijacker as a tribute to the American system of justice. And on and on.

But rational thought isn't always a strong weapon when matched against fear. So the G.O.P. is well-positioned to score points with its blistering attacks on the trial issue - at least in the short term.

Which brings us back to the idea that Republicans are making a morbid bet. Because the short-term efficacy of their terror trial fear campaign will cease to work - and in fact will backfire - if the trials end up proceeding in orderly fashion and producing guilty verdicts. Then, the administration will be free to celebrate the triumph of the American system - and to remind the public, over and over, how afraid Republicans were to place their faith in our system. There won't be much for the G.O.P. to say in response.

But Republicans will have plenty to say if some sort of terrorist incident coincides with the trial - or if one occurs at any other point in Obama's first term. Then, they'll be the ones saying they told us so.

In that sense, their terror trial hysteria is merely an extension of a game plan Republicans have been following since Obama was inaugurated. They have missed no opportunity to portray any foreign policy or national security decision he makes - even over something as trivial as whether to bow when greeting the Japanese emperor - as a sign that he's "soft" on terrorism and security.

So we have Dick Cheney and John McCain sounding the alarm over Obama's "dithering" on Afghanistan, with right-wing media outlets piling on (even as sober, rational voices like Colin Powell insist that Obama should take his time and not be rushed into making a decision on troop levels). We have Karl Rove (and countless others) accusing Obama of being on an "apology tour" when he visits other world leaders. And we have the present craziness over terror trials.

In ways big and small, the G.O.P.'s game is to paint Obama as weak and soft. The long-term calculation is undeniable: the more noise Republicans make now about Obama's supposed "softness" on terrorism, the more it will resonate with voters in the event that there is another major terrorist incident during his presidency.

To be fair, there are some conservatives who aren't interested in playing this game (just as there are some Democrats who have joined in). "The scaremongering about these issues should stop," conservative leaders David Keene, Grover Norquist and Bob Barr said in a statement this week. 

Maybe Keene, Norquist and Barr (the Libertarian nominee for president last year) are genuinely offended by what's going on. But from a political standpoint, they probably also recognize it as a bad bet - one that leaves Obama trying to keep the country safe and his political opponents hoping that he can't.

I addressed most of this kind of hysterical talk in the last post, but the idea that Lieberman would send Bob Barr’s poll numbers skyrocketing is beyond absurd and deserves to be singled out.

First, Barr is struggling to attract money, press attention, and on-line interest and is on course to finish with about one percent of the vote (if that). The notion that he might reach 15 percent (or even 5 percent) is a stretch to start with. But more preposterous is Gingrich’s apparent view that social conservatives enraged by the presence of a pro-choice vice-presidential nominee on a G.O.P. ticket led by a pro-lifer would flock en masse to the Libertarian Party. In case you’ve forgotten, here is the abortion plank of the Libertarian platform adopted three months ago:

While it’s true that Barr calls himself a pro-life Libertarian (and that he racked up a devoutly pro-life voting record in the U.S. House), his position now seems to favor leaving the matter to the states (and perhaps encouraging them to outlaw it). Presumably, he’d appoint numerous Libertarians (many of them pro-choice) to his administration. Wouldn’t that alarm social conservatives more than just one pro-choice vice president?

Oh, and there’s this: Barr also favors decriminalizing drugs and called California’s decision to allow gay marriage “an illustration of how [the] principle of states’ powers should work.”

It’s just a hunch, but something tells me that Joe Lieberman’s addition to the G.O.P. ticket would not prompt 20 million conservative voters to flock to a pro-drug, pro-gay marriage candidate whose party’s platform calls for legal abortion.

Maybe we need some perspective here.

Yes, it is theoretically possible that this election will come down to a handful of votes in one state, in which case the support that Barr receives – or that any other third-party candidate receives, for that matter – could theoretically swing the election. But it is highly, highly unlikely that Barr will be a consequential player this fall for numerous reasons.

First, his poll numbers are wildly inflated right now. A Zogby survey out today has Barr grabbing 6 percent nationally. Other recent polls show him in that same ball park. (Just as some polls have found Ralph Nader also running at or near 5 percent nationally.) Most of this is a result simply of pollsters including Barr’s name (and Nader’s for that matter) in their surveys, and thus providing an outlet for respondents who for whatever reason aren’t ready to say they’re for Barack Obama or John McCain. Few, if any, respondents are actually volunteering Barr's name, because few (if any) know it.

To actually score 6 percent, or anything close to it, on Election Day is nothing short of a monumental achievement for any third-party candidate. Invariably, most soft third-party supporters decide they don’t want to “waste” their vote once they enter the voting booth. Just consider the electoral history of the Libertarian Party since it first nominated a national ticket in 1972 (note that the party did not attain 50-state ballot access until 1980):

1972: 0.00% (3,674 votes nationally)

1976: 0.2%

1980: 1.1%

1984: 0.3%

1988: 0.47%

1992: 0.28%

1996: 0.5%

2000: 0.36%

2004: .32%

Ah, you say, but this time will be different for the Libertarians because Barr is a much more widely known nominee.

But actually, we’ve been down this road before. Back in ’88, the party also nominated a former congressman – Ron Paul, whose name you may be familiar with. Paul had served eight years in Congress before leaving in 1984, just as Barr represented Georgia for eight years before leaving (well, actually he was forced out by redistricting and the voters) in 2002. Paul’s ’88 national profile was actually quite similar to Barr’s now.

Moreover, we heard the same neat theories in ’88 about Paul’s potential spoiler role: Conservative Republicans, upset by Vice President George H. W. Bush’s unconvincing efforts to distance himself from his supply-side skepticism and other flagrant apostasies, would migrate in surprising numbers to Paul’s camp. Here’s how The New York Times wrote of the Paul threat to Bush Sr. in August 1988:

And then there was this: Supporters of Pat Robertson, who had fared far better than expected against Bush in the G.O.P. primaries, began mounting a campaign on Paul’s behalf. The Robertson forces specifically targeted Michigan, a state with a sizable evangelical population (particularly in its western half) and where Robertson had done particularly well against Bush. The chairman of the Michigan Conservative Union (and the state chair of the ’80 and ’84 Reagan campaign in the state) endorsed Paul and issued the following warning: “Bush won't carry Michigan without conservative support. From what I can see right now, he's going to have a hard time getting it."

But Bush carried Michigan easily – by eight points and almost 300,000 votes. Paul didn’t even register, in Michigan or nationally. He finished with less than a half of a percent of the national popular vote.

Today, we’re hearing the very same grumblings from the same conservative voices about McCain – and the same talk of a potentially ascendant Libertarian alternative.

There are other reasons to dismiss Barr. For one, as Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com noted recently, he is hardly on pace to make any noise on the fund-raising front. This is significant because the only credible Libertarian showing in a national election came in 1980, when the party was able to air a series of five-minute spots in prime time on national network television. How could they do this? Because Ed Clark tapped David Koch, one of the wealthiest men in the country, to be his running mate – and Koch spent generously on behalf of the ticket and the party.

There is really no reason to believe that Barr will do any better than any previous Libertarian candidate, which means he’ll probably get around one-half percent or so of the vote. Typically, Libertarians run strongest in Western states – their all-time-best mark was 12 percent in Alaska in ’80 – so in theory, his presence on the ballot could sway a potentially competitive state like Montana or Alaska. But if Obama is within a few points of winning either of those states come November, then he’ll almost certainly be in position to score a sweeping electoral college rout, no matter what effect Barr has.

Yes, Bob Barr could affect this election. So could any of the numerous other third-party candidates on various state ballots this year. We don’t hear much about them, and we really don’t need to hear too much more about Barr.

At 1 p.m., Mike Bloomberg delivers his State of the City address at the New York City College of Technology in Brooklyn.

At 2 p.m., the New York Convention Center Operating Corporation's
governance committee holds a meeting on West 34th Street.

At 3:30 p.m., the city's schools chancellor will have a press round-table at the Tweed Courthouse.

At 7 p.m., the Manhattan Young Democrats have a New Year's party.

At 7:30 p.m., officers from 104th Precinct in Middle Village, Queens will have a community meeting on 71st Street.

And the RNC's Winter meeting in D.C. begins.

-- Azi Paybarah

Supporters of Mr. Barr's have suggested the lawsuoit it is about the second amendment, Bloomberg has long held that his lawsuit was about gun dealers breaking the law and allowing illegal arms to flow into the city.

Mr. Barr's press office at the American Conservative Union said that practically all of New York media has tied up their phones since the announcement, and that Barr was, for now, unavailbale to comment beyond the press release they sent us (after the jump).

In the small print on the bottom, we noticed that he serves on the Board of Directors of the National Rifle Association.

-- Jason Horowitz

UPDATE: We spoke with Mr. Barr's personal spokesperson and not the press office of the American Conservative Union.

BARR, LAW FIRM ANNOUNCE MAJOR LEGAL ACTION AGAINST NYC MAYOR BLOOMBERG

Atlanta, GA - Attorney and former Congressman Bob Barr announced today that he and the Law Offices of Edwin Marger, LLC, of which he is Of Counsel and is located in Jasper, Georgia, have today filed legal action against New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on behalf of Adventure Outdoors. Bloomberg, in May of this year, named Adventure Outdoors, a family owned hunting supply business in Smyrna, Georgia, in a federal lawsuit against "rogue gun dealers."

Bloomberg conspired with others named in the lawsuit to deceive Adventure Outdoors in order to falsely and fraudulently purchase a firearm. By doing so, the conspirators falsified an ATF form which is a violation of federal and Georgia laws. Furthermore, Bloomberg then released misleading statements to national news media, which damaged the reputation and business of Adventure Outdoors in this scheme to defame and violate the law. In the lawsuit filed today in Superior Court in Cobb County, Barr and Marger allege Mayor Bloomberg and others violated federal and state law in carrying out their activities in Georgia. The suit also seeks damages

Barr and Marger announced also that they have sent letters to U.S. Attorney David Nahmias in Atlanta and to Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker, requesting that they initiate an investigation of the so-called "undercover investigation" conducted by Mayor Bloomberg and others operating under his direction.

In his statement, Barr expressed his confidence in a successful outcome for Adventure Outdoors and further stated that "Mayor Bloomberg's and the other players' actions were careless, willful and clearly illegal."

###

Barr, a former Member of Congress (1995-2003), has served with the U.S. Department of Justice and Central Intelligence Agency and he continues to serve on the Board of Directors of the National Rifle Association. He is a lawyer and currently works with organizations including the American Conservative Union Foundation and the ACLU on issues related to privacy and national security. He serves as Chairman for Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances.

Well, before his new friends get too excited, it's worth noting that Barr is back on the Black Helicopter juice, as expressed in an email over his name from the anti-Hillary group Stop Her Now:

"I know the real Hillary. She is as ambitious and intelligent as she is ruthless and determined. What she lacks in charm and empathy, she makes up for with cunning and strategy. But she has to be stopped," Barr writes. "Her radical left-wing agenda would destroy our nation's economy, ruin our health care system and turn our national security over to the America-hating socialist bureaucrats at the United Nations."

It's been far too long since anyone alerted The Politicker to the dangers from America-hating socialist bureaucrats.

This spectacle isn't reassuring, to say the least, but it is darkly funny-and, as usual, the most entertainment is provided by those wacky 'wingers.

Consider freshman Representative Butch Otter (whose name aptly recalls one of the characters in Animal House ). Just the other day, the Idaho Republican was present at a hearing of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on aviation security, when someone mentioned that new technology can "see" through passengers' clothing. According to Roll Call , Mr. Otter suddenly wondered aloud whether he could "sign up to be a screener" at an airport.

Another doltish interlude featured John Cooksey, the benighted Louisiana Representative who briefly earned some national press attention for recommending that airport police apprehend anyone "wearing a diaper on his head." And should anyone assume that comic relief can be found only on the back benches, there was a bizarre episode involving J.C. Watts, Republican of Oklahoma and chairman of the House Republican Conference.

On Sept. 28, Mr. Watts parked illegally in a loading zone at Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City, only to find a police sergeant putting a $15 ticket on his car when he returned. Infuriated, he grabbed the ticket, stuffed it under the officer's badge and yelled some gibberish like, "What if I'd had a bomb?"

The Federal Aviation Administration was informed of the incident, as they are whenever some idiot talks about a bomb at an airport. Meanwhile, Mr. Watts' wife has paid the ticket and he has apologized for his "bad behavior," his spokeswoman told the Daily Oklahoman , explaining that since Sept. 11, the Congressman has suffered "a lot of tension, a lot of stress."

Haven't we all? Clowning aside, post-traumatic stress disorder surely afflicts dozens of Congressional conservatives, whose conduct increasingly defies rationality. Their inability to cope, however, doesn't excuse their attempts to obstruct overdue measures to upgrade aviation safety and revitalize the economy. More than three dozen of them have reportedly threatened to kill a key trade bill if the Bush administration approves a Democratic initiative to federalize airport security and passes Mr. Bush's economic-stimulus package.

Unsurprisingly, the campaign to prevent a federal takeover of this vital function-now so miserably performed by private companies-is led by Texans Tom DeLay and Dick Armey and the irrepressible Georgian, Bob Barr. These are the same characters whose primitive priorities have, in the recent past, prevented chemical "tagging" of explosives to allow easier tracing of terrorist perps by federal authorities. (Could they be the "fifth column" that a few fevered pundits have struggled lately to uncover?)

In the mouths of such politicians, conservative ideology sounds like a mental pathology. Mr. Barr, for

instance, questions whether aviation security is truly "a federal function." Ohio Senator George Voinovich chimes in, denouncing "New Deal, Great Society–type" programs that "are going to cost an enormous amount of money." They are unhappy with the notion that thousands of new, well-paid government employees may be hired, swelling the ranks of public-service unions. What evidently doesn't occur to them is that this may be the best way-indeed, the only way-to guarantee that an atrocity like the airliner attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon never happens again.

Among these Congressional bumpkins, it is a point of pride that they rarely if ever travel outside this country, so their ignorance of security protocols in other advanced countries is probably inevitable. In nations where this problem is taken seriously, the personnel who screen passengers and baggage are highly trained, decently compensated professionals with uniforms that signify state authority.

Here is a simple exercise that might help the Republican leaders transcend their hidebound ideas about political economy. Imagine a lineup of four people, all from the New York City area. The first is a police officer. The second is a firefighter. The third is an emergency-service worker. The last is an airport security guard.

The first three are employed by huge government agencies, belong to aggressive unions, earn middle-class salaries and benefits, and tend to remain in their jobs for a lifetime. (Any one of them is more likely than not a hero, too.) The fourth toils for a private company, has no union representation, gets little more than the minimum wage, usually quits after a few months, and doesn't even have to be an American citizen to be hired. Choose one or more to help protect your family from a gang of crazed killers.

Even Bob Barr and Tom DeLay should be able to figure this out.

cried "vandal," is in a world of trouble. The clever ploy he executed last

January to demean the White House's former occupants and thus dignify his

boss-all the while feigning high-minded disinterest-looks more and more like a

lowdown frame-up. His accusations about the damage done to the executive mansion by Clinton administration staffers

have lost credibility, and so has he.

After months of media hyperbole about felonious behavior and

hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage, the only "evidence" put forward to

substantiate Mr. Fleischer's charges is a couple of photographs. At most, they

show an office littered with boxes and files. To date, there is no evidence of

severed phone lines, wrecked keyboards, obscene graffiti, busted furniture,

stolen plaques, pilfered doorknobs or any of the assorted awful delinquencies

ascribed to the departing Clinton staff in stories attributed to anonymous Bush

sources.

Of course, the veteran

scandalmongers of the national press corps required little or no substantiation

for this thrilling story. By last January, broadcasting and exaggerating such

tales about the Clintons, their staff and their associates was an eight-year

media addiction, and its ill effects were exacerbated by the related habit of

ignoring or burying exculpatory facts.

These old journalistic

patterns persisted for a while, even after the General Accounting Office's

investigation of the supposed vandalism, demanded by Representative Bob Barr, a

Georgia Republican, revealed no incriminating data. According to the General

Services Administration, "the condition of the real property was consistent

with what we would expect to encounter when tenants vacate office space after

an extended occupancy." Likewise, the G.A.O. informed the kooky Congressman that

the White House had provided "no record of damage that may have been

deliberately caused by the Clinton administration."

Despite the typical reluctance to properly correct lurid,

baseless headlines, the official contradiction of Mr. Fleischer's fantasies was

too sharp to be suppressed by the Washington press corps. At long last, some of

these Elmer Fudds, stumbling around with their notebooks and tape recorders,

started to suspect that they'd been duped. This suspicion grew when, upon being

asked a few elementary questions, the press secretary responded with blusters

and evasions. His answers were less plausible than a dot-com business plan.

Consider Mr. Fleischer's

claim that the alleged damage was "catalogued" by the White House staff. It

quickly turned out that he hadn't meant that term to be taken literally, as no

one had physically recorded any act of vandalism until June 1. Instead,

according to him, an outraged Bush aide was maintaining full and complete

"mental" notes for four months.

(Mr. Fleischer insists

that the Clinton gang threw away all the pencils and paper, a nefarious act

that may have precluded traditional methods of compiling information. Or

perhaps, as he has hinted more than once, the Bush staffers and their boss,

George W., were just too noble to write down those bad things.)

Fortunately, the young

Republicans have prodigious brains. They remember everything perfectly! How

else to account for the highly detailed set of "facts" provided to The Washington

Post by Mr. Fleischer last weekend?

Suddenly, he had nice round numbers for the disconnected or damaged telephones

(75), pornographic phone messages (15), discarded binders (6,000), tampered

keyboards (100) and booby-trapped fax machines (six).

Concluding with a few tart words about the Bush

administration's unappreciated "graciousness," Mr. Fleischer told the Post that he now hopes "everyone can go

on with the policy and business of the government." That may not be possible

just yet, however, much as he would like to get back to prevaricating about

bigger issues.

The unstraitjacketed Mr. Barr has demanded another vandalism

probe by the G.A.O. (although one of his calmer aides apparently told United

Press International that he doesn't really want "a full-blown investigation

with subpoenas and hundreds of interviews." Maybe just enough to refurbish the

original smear, if possible.) And Mr. Barr's request has been endorsed by many

former Clinton staffers, who believe it will vindicate their innocence of

anything more destructive than minor pranks.

Meanwhile, the media pack might press Mr. Fleischer with a

few more belated inquiries: Do any requisitions, orders or other documents

exist to confirm the vandalism story? Are there any photographs of skanky

graffiti? Will anyone on the White House staff speak on the record about what

they found in late January?

If this fiasco drags on much longer, the Oval Office

masterminds who pull Mr. Fleischer's strings could decide that their flattened

flack is no longer worth the embarrassment. There is a traditional solution to

problems such as this.

The press secretary can be "promoted" to handle "other

responsibilities" that don't require any skeptical adult to believe what he

says. From a White House that never apologizes, that might be apology enough.

Still, in the great game of expectations, Mr. Flynt crashed. His hot potatoes proved minuscule, though he claims to have more on the fire. Having shoved Representative Robert Livingston into the fastest fall in American history since William Henry Harrison died a month after his inauguration, Mr. Flynt flubbed his encore. What he did was join Matt Drudge as a mighty shoveler on the dungheap of accusations. For that matter, Mr. Flynt also joins the New York Post , that shrine of family values, which on Jan. 3 front-paged Mr. Drudge's canard about Bill–sorry, William Jefferson–Clinton's hypothetical Arkansas love child. (Mr. Murdoch's sheet somehow neglected to front-page the DNA results when they proved negative.)

Leave aside, for the moment, the question of Mr. Flynt's integrity, not to mention his journalistic acumen, his letting rumors of truly stupendous revelations fly around so long that they may have flopped of their own weight. The truly interesting question is how Larry Flynt moved to the heart, or the spleen, of the current culture jihad. There has never been a war without vile allies joining in common cause.

So there is something as fitting as it is disgusting to see Larry Flynt, the man who once displayed on Hustler 's cover a cartoon of a woman being ground into chopped meat, appear as a warrior for the libertarian side of the culture war. Like it or not, he belongs there with Hugh Hefner, Madonna, Barney Frank, Dennis Rodman and, in their own ways, Hillary Rodham and Bill Clinton. History, mocker of distinctions, dropped him there.

The culture war of the last 30 years revives an epochal collision, two centuries' worth of clashes between America's modernizing individualists and its authoritarian theocrats. It has always been a regional fight, pitting the Southern-and-heartland booboisie against the city slickers. It would be delightful to read H.L. Mencken on Jerry Falwell. In the second half of the 20th century, city slickers spawned suburban slickers and swingers, who now far outnumber their country cousins. What Mencken didn't live to see were the heartland boys, Midwesterners Hugh Hefner and Larry Flynt prominent among them, who knew where to butter their bread. The same Jerry Falwell who marketed a video charging Bill Clinton with murder was destined to fall afoul of Mr. Flynt's brutal cartoonists. The same Milos Forman who felt the brunt of Czechoslovakia's Communist censors was destined to apotheosize Mr. Flynt's contributions to the bizarre saga of American liberty.

The fabled 60's can be sliced many ways, but the version in play all year during the Republicans' siege of the White House is, as promised, no less than a culture war. The cleavage divided libertarians from moralists; the Playboy philosophy, contraception and abortion, sex equality and gay rights, all wrapped up together and damn the contradictions, versus Strom Thurmond and Trent Lott; Geraldo and Jenny Jones versus Kenneth Starr and Henry Hyde. The broadcast of outrage through scads of channels amounts, in William Bennett's terms, to the death of the popular outrage he longs for–and gives rise, as Republican pollsters are finding out, to a second birth of outrage against Mr. Bennett and his crowd. It is because the libertarian side of the culture war prevails that public opinion has hung with Bill Clinton for a full year now, and the libertarian wing of the Republican Party is in a disloyal mood.

Most people don't give a damn for a culture jihad. They've long since decided that different folks practice different strokes with folks who are different from the folks with whom they practice their own strokes. They relish tales of other people's transgressions, but call that entertainment. They know there is something else called "government," which requires focus–the very trait that now goes by the name of "compartmentalization." They knew who they were getting in Bill Clinton–not the guy they wanted to marry their daughter or sister. They were getting government. Their own lives have been too jagged to permit them to remount the high horses Mr. Bennett and the family Kristol favor.

As I argued in my last column, most voters are not most people, which is the only reason the two sides of American culture look so evenly matched. The Republicans now tremble at the libertarian beast they have waked from its slumber. Jesse (The Alliance-Builder) Ventura has given them another scare: a guy who has publicly worn a dress and who got young, white working-class men–the kind who once put Ronald Reagan over the top–to turn out for him in droves. If Mr. Ventura didn't directly target Hustler readers, it's because he didn't need to. His proclaimed mix of conservative economics and moderate culture is not so different from Mr. Clinton's. It is the American norm now. The libertines have won, though it's taking a while for Mr. Barr to get the news. The normalization of outrage is the name of America's favorite game, and not any of the smug Republican choirboys–not Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, or Orrin Hatch of Utah, or the aptly named Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, or George Will, or Ralph Reed, or Mr. Starr, not any of those smooth-faced culture warriors–are ever going to get Mr. Flynt back under his rock.