Photo illustration by Ed Johnson.

The conventional wisdom insists that President Obama has all the leverage right now over the Republicans in their negotiation for a “grand bargain” to close the budget deficit. Bolstered by his smashing election victory, gains by the Democrats in both houses of Congress and a changing popular mood, this would seem like the ideal moment to forge a deal largely on the president’s terms—one that would raise federal income tax rates on the wealthiest Americans while cutting spending and “reforming” Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Proof of Mr. Obama’s upper hand is seen in the dropping stock of anti-tax zealot (and forced-abortion apologist) Grover Norquist. One after another, Republicans even in deep red states have been forswearing their previous oaths to Mr. Norquist never to vote for any tax increase. Surely, the president—renowned “Zen master,” and player of “three-dimensional chess”—hovers on the brink of another improbable victory, one that will secure his historical legacy. Right?

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact it’s Mr. Obama, not the Republicans, who is caught between a rock and a hard place. To hit our tenuously recovering economy right now with tax increases (even on the very wealthiest) and massive cuts in federal spending is a terrible idea. It could easily push us into a “double-dip” recession. To cut entitlement benefits and push back the age at which Americans can retire—possibly all the way to 69—will also be economically disastrous, not to mention unspeakably cruel and a grotesque betrayal of the president’s own base. It could split the Democratic party beyond repair.

The Republican leadership surely must understand this. What’s more, they have the “fiscal cliff” at their back—the bill they passed during the budget crisis they manufactured last year that mandates severe, automatic, across-the-board spending cuts if no bargain on the deficit is reached. This would likely dip us back into recession as well, and probably set off chaos in the financial markets.

It is widely thought that going over the fiscal cliff will rebound worst against the Republicans, since they will be seen as more intransigent than ever. But what do they care? The one branch of the federal government controlled by the GOP is the House, where nearly all their members hold safe seats in deeply conservative districts. They can probably weather the national outrage against diving off the “cliff” even if it does mean another recession, and they know it.

So, if President Obama fails to reach an agreement on the deficit, he’ll probably set off a worldwide financial panic, and plunge the country back into recession. If he does reach an agreement, he’ll likely alienate most of his own party ... and plunge the country back into recession.

The various, “outside-the-box” alternatives now being offered are no more appealing. House Speaker John Boehner and other leading Republicans have been floating the idea of raising additional tax revenue by closing loopholes instead of increasing rates, so they can kinda sorta say they didn’t really raise taxes.

But closing all the loopholes in existence won’t raise enough revenue. If this approach ever becomes law, it should be called “The Washington Lobbyists Full-Employment Act.” Essentially, this was the idea behind the big Reagan tax reform compromise of 1986: income tax rates were lowered and simplified, in return for eliminating most exemptions. But as the last quarter-century has proved, there’s nothing easier for a lobbyist to do than slip a loophole back into the tax code a little down the line.

Most professional economists would prefer a “tax on consumption” rather than income, through either a national sales tax or a value-added tax at various stages of production.

I can never understand why this is such a great idea, since any capitalist economy is driven by consumption, whereas great accumulated wealth gives people an inherent—and often unfair—advantage. Shouldn’t we be trying to encourage people to make as much money as they can ... then even out the results a little, so that those who have made more can’t use that added income to, say, buy lobbyists and economists to espouse policies in their interests?

On a more practical level, any sort of sales or consumption tax ought to be entitled, “The Mafia Restoration Act.” That’s because of the thousands of industrious citizens who will purchase cargo vans and start actively driving goods in from Canada to sell on the black market if any such tax is ever passed. (Full disclosure: I, too, intend to buy a truck and start shipping goods in from Canada if this happens.)

So where does that leave us? What should a true Zen master do when faced with this menu of unsavory choices?

He should fold.

That’s right. President Obama should offer to give in and support extending the Bush tax cuts for another year, if—and this is a mighty big “if”—the Republicans agree to abolish the fiscal cliff.

Getting an extension of the payroll tax suspension and unemployment payments would also be a good idea, but this one concession is imperative: get rid of the cliff.

Think about it. With the economy showing sure signs of recovery at last, President Obama will only be in a better position a year from now. As Europe insists on sticking to its own austerity programs and China’s economy continues to slow, we will likely be in a post-World War II situation—the only promising investment opportunity left standing. International capital will pour in, accelerating our recovery and starting to shrink the deficit “naturally.”

A year from now, with the economy humming along at last, there would also be no fiscal cliff, no need to slash benefits for seniors or make them die in harness. If Republicans don’t want to accept his budget terms, the president can simply let the Bush tax cuts expire at last.

This scenario would mean higher taxes for the middle- and working classes, which is not ideal. But they will be much better able to afford them during an economic boom. Meanwhile, the rich will at last be forced to pay the extortionate federal income tax rate of 39 percent they labored under during the Clinton years. And all of these new payments will at least continue to ratchet down the debt, appeasing the deficit hand-wringers without the need to punish the elderly and the indigent.

This is what a president who is really a Zen master—instead of, say, a diffident individual always willing to accept the conventional political and economic wisdom—would do. Which is President Obama? We’ll soon find out.

For three consecutive days last week, I woke up before 9 a.m. without the use of an alarm. This has never happened before. It’s not because I’m bright-eyed and looking to seize a brand-new day’s worth of opportunities, but because I'm an addict. A filthy, filthy blood-eyed, rot-tooth addict, and the new shipment just came in. CSPAN’s coverage of Congress comically attempting to do something important begins at the crack of dawn, and I hate to miss even a second of it. 
That’s right, our completely broken federal government has begun its latest round of fiscal negotiations in search of a big deal, before some apocalyptic fate entirely of the politicians' own creation kicks in.

There's nothing I can do to turn away, reveling in all of the fake twists and posturing and lying and shifts in leverage. It gets more embarrassing for the country each time, and so I get more immersed in it. Grimy, cynical, awful budget negotiation crack—it is military-grade nerd meth, watching this horror show play out.

The "fiscal cliff" negotiations represent the fourth such circus in the past two years. The two parties take it upon themselves to resolve a bundle of major budgetary issues against the backdrop of a ticking clock that, were it to hit zero, would release an army of 10 million demons into the night. Only under such a threat, the theory goes, can these two parties with completely different ideologies but a shared strategic philosophy of "fuck over the other's base" come together to pass whatever biggies are coming up on the calendar.

It started with the tax negotiations in the 2010 lame-duck session, under threat of full expiration of the Bush tax cuts. The parties finally agreed, in the last days of the session, to delay all major tax decisions another two years. In April 2011, after Republicans took control of the House, it was about funding the government for six months and maybe cutting some spending in the process, or endure a government shutdown. Ten minutes before their deadline, they decided to keep spending pretty much the same for the next six months.

The next month's debate was about raising the debt ceiling. You remember that one, right? It was that funny one where the House Republicans threatened to arbitrarily destroy the global economy forever if they didn't get a constitutional amendment to ban the Democratic party's policies, basically. That stupid plot by stupid people who hadn't yet read their federal policymaker Cliffs Notes led to more last-minute flailing can-kicking. And now here we are, trying to resolve all of this accumulated, punted crap at once before a bunch of recessions and Mayan apocalypses ruin whatever's left of the Greatest Country in the History of the World.

I've followed each of these sagas closely. My addiction is now long past the point where it should've exploded my brain, but here I am, tweaking out on all the latest minutiae again.

Here's how fiscal negotiations addiction works its dark magic: I understand at this point that the day-in, day-out drama of it all is entirely a theater production where the lead actors pander to their bases until the very last second, when they decide to maintain the status quo as planned all along. But the clearer this becomes—and it really can't get much clearer—the more engrossed I am with the day-in, day-out drama that I know to be fictional.

This is the best month ever.

I live-tweeted C-SPAN from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Monday, for free, when no one asked me to.

Everyone was writing off Grover Norquist for dead, along with his famous anti-tax pledge, after a few congressional Republicans said they'd consider increasing revenue by eliminating certain tax deductions—a direct violation Norquist’s pledge! President Obam  already seemed to have the leverage at this point, with his ability to wait until after the fiscal cliff to draw up his own tax plan if he didn't get one he liked. Now he saw his leverage get even more leverage-y. I read every article on the Internet about this. I kept another tab for TPM reporter Brian Beutler's site, refreshing it all day. He is so smart about leverage, Brian—my go-to leverage guy.

And then, a few more hours on Twitter, reading about tax deductions and cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security beneficiaries and tweeting one-liners about them.

A Republican congressman then pointed out that his party would have more leverage if it passed Obama's middle-class-only tax cuts before the end of the year and dealt with the spending cut side in January, after Obama had already given up his leverage. Could it work? I spent an hour on Twitter bombarding poor Brian with leverage questions.

I read about taxes and leverage and tweeted out links for 30 hours over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday. Don't worry, I took some breaks… to read more of the fancy, think-tank tax and leverage stuff on the Internet, that is. Mark Schmitt of the Roosevelt Institute, for one, is a delicacy. "It's a very complicated argument, but what it comes down to is this," he writes in an article about budget baselines and interest groups' scoring methods or something. "Letting the tax cuts expire by law would actually achieve many of the goals of tax reform… But if the tax reform is already half-completed, there's less room for classic tax reform in a grand bargain."

Yes! How can you say you’re doing tax reform if your top condition is to keep most of the Bush tax cuts in place? The idea of the parties ever wanting to radically upend the status quo in a mutually sacrifical “Grand Bargain” is a dirty lie! It was all starting to make sense, and I just needed to read a few more articles and tweets in the morning to discover the full truth...

…But then I woke up at 2 p.m. on Thursday, missing everything.

And it really didn't fucking matter.

There are hundreds or thousands of other fellow fiscal negotiations junkies along with me. I see you there, on Twitter—don't think I can't tell.

This is bad. We've got to put an end to this sort of behavior before it wastes us.

I'm talking about you, Congress. Please stop attempting to craft these big budget deals that you’ll never execute. The negotiation process makes for some excellent, guilty-pleasure reality TV, but booming C-SPAN ratings aren’t the best indicator of a job well done.

Dr. Anita Hill with a bunch of white guys.

This afternoon, Time magazine held its annual lunch and panel for it's prestigious person of the year issue. We went in with our money on Occupy Wall Street, but most of our other journo diners seemed to take it as a given that the honor would be bestowed on Steve Jobs.

It was an impressive panel led by Time's Rich Stengel: NBC's Brian Williams, Anita Hill, Jesse Eisenberg, Mario Batali, Seth Meyers, and Grover Norquist, president of the advocacy group Americans for Tax Reform.

The panelists themselves were split about the Jobs vs. the Arab Spring/OWS phenomenon (which Mr. Eisenberg voted for as a general "Populist Movement.") Mr. Williams cast his lot for the Apple founder, though Mr. Stengel was quick to point out that Time has never chosen a deceased person for their cover. (As if that would be a big deal...they put the friggin' iPad on there.) MSNBC contributor and Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness? author Toure may have had the only good point against putting Jobs on the cover, which he likened to giving someone who died an Academy Award even if they didn't give the best performance. "Did Steve Jobs actually change the world in 2011?" he asked the panelists. Mr. Stengel also likened putting Mr. Jobs on the cover with giving someone "a lifetime achievement award."

Mr. Batali was pro-Jobs, saying: "The smartphone has changed the world as much as the Bible has."

Mr. Williams worried that giving the honor of "Person of the year" to a protest wouldn't sit well with readers. "There is an institutional distaste for a movement without a face."

Perhaps that is why Dr. Hill chose  Elizabeth Warren for her attempts to enact real change in Washington. She also nominated a woman involved in the uprising from Cairo, because a "social justice movement" was more important than the technology behind it.

Mr. Meyers cast his lot with Nicolas Sarkozy or Angela Merkel should be in consideration for their role in trying to stop the euro debt crisis, but didn't know if they would end up being considered heroes or villains when the dust cleared.

Eloquent on stage, Mr. Eisenberg sounded like Jeff Goldblum on meth after the panel when we tried to ask him about Occupy Wall Street. Had he been down? What did he think of it?

"Sure, sure, sure," Jesse said, nodding his head vigorously.

Wait...so...he has been down to Zuccotti Park?

"Sure, yes, I have."

Thoughts?

"These protests are, uh, always good and, I hope that, you know, it grows into something."

There went our hope that the Social Network actor had winked at us earlier...it was probably just an involuntary tic.

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.

“[Having earmarks] changes the nature of who a congressman is. All of a sudden, he is a favor factory,” Norquist told me.

He noted that there is legislation in Congress to curb the use of earmarks right now, like conservative Republican Senator Tom Coburn's call for a one-year moratorium.

“Getting Democrats to cosponsor that would be great,” Norquist said. “If he [Weiner] can be the beginning of a bunch of Democrat cosponsors to come forward, that would be very helpful.”

After saying he’d reach out to Weiner to talk to him about this issue, Norquist added, “I’ve worked with [Ralph] Nader on this subject. So the idea that the left is capable of playing a key role in this does not surprise me at all.”

It should be noted that Weiner has secured his fair share of earmarks, bringing home at least $8.6 million worth of it.

“There’s a lot of government-looking kind of buildings, I think we heard a cow mooing in the distance,” she said. “But it’s hunting season, as we noted earlier, out here in Englewood Cliffs, and I heard the peacocks are in season.”

It’s clear that in launching FBN, Rupert Murdoch has trained his sights on the well-primped tail feathers of CNBC. But judging from its first day, for Roger Ailes and company, the real big game appears to be big government, not big media.

At one point, reporting from Washington, D.C., correspondent Adam Shapiro explained how federal earmarks to study shrimp and catfish showed that government spending has gotten out of hand. “Not that I have anything against shrimp and catfish,” Mr. Shapiro hastened to add. “Good-tasting stuff … but that’s how these things grow.”

Soon, the new network pulled out the big gun of economic conservatism: Grover Norquist.

For the next several minutes, Mr. Norquist—the right-wing activist who once gleefully announced he’d like to get government down to a size where it could be drowned in a bathtub—explained to FBN viewers how the various Democratic presidential candidates were likely to threaten the livelihood of Americans of all classes by repealing President Bush’s tax cuts and further increasing federal spending.

“Obviously both Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Edwards are talking about spending perhaps two trillion dollars,” he said. “Not just the one trillion on health care, but they’ve made a number of promises in addition to that.”

In recent months, much has been made of Mr. Murdoch’s assertion that while CNBC is geared towards Wall Street, FBN would appeal to Main Street.

But lately, FBN executives have tweaked that claim, suggesting that FBN will seek to appeal to both camps.

How to pull it off?

On day one of FBN, a large part of the answer seemed to be constantly stoking the threat of higher taxes and runaway spending—a threat, after all, that should concern Wall Street brokers and Main Street business owners alike. In the months to come, look for Runaway Government to play a similar role on FBN to the one that Runaway Liberalism plays on the Fox News Channel—that is, as the sinister common enemy around which the audience can rally.

But rallying the pin-striped masses also requires on-air talent, as Mr. Ailes understands. Early on, Alexis Glick, the former CNBC and Today show contributor turned FBN business news director and morning anchor, shone. The leggy former New York City high-school basketball star lit up the morning set, injecting her winsome sports fandom into programming across the slate, including a segment called “Stocks and Jocks” (in which guest analysts debated who would make a better CEO, Bill Belichick or Tony Dungy) and an oddly entertaining interview with New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft about his $5 million gift to the anemic Columbia University football program.

Elsewhere in the lineup, Cody Willard, the long-locked co-host of FBN’s boozy evening banterfest Happy Hour, was already attracting the attention of competitors. Last night, MSNBC’s Dan Abrams devoted his Beat the Press segment to mocking Mr. Willard. “The Fox Business Channel started today,” said Mr. Abrams. “And you know what? They’re just really cool. You know, like Real World and like Beavis and Butt-Head. Cool.” Abrams followed up with a clip of Maroon 5-ish–vibing Mr. Willard touting his “famous” one-liners. “Rock ’n’ roll,” added Mr. Abrams, dryly. “Yeah!”

But throughout the day on FBN, the big bad faceless Feds remained the most reliable targets. A few hours after her peacock-hunting excursion, Ms. MacDonald was back in FBN’s Manhattan studios, across from anchor Connell McShane, weighing in on … the dangers of big government.

“President Reagan once said that the closest thing to immortality is a government program,” said Ms. MacDonald. “It’s a super-size-me government going on, and I think it’s a problem.” As if viewers might not have gotten the message, she added: “Pat Buchanan said, ‘Like Thelma and Louise, Social Security and Medicare are heading right for that cliff, and taxpayers are in the back seat.’”

The implication: Fox will put you in front.

Usually, that event doesn’t hit its stride until well into the night. This year, it was barely 9 p.m. when organizers began herding tipsy state reps and starry-eyed college students out into the warm Washington night.

Still reeling from last fall’s epic losses in the House and Senate, the conservatives who showed up weren’t in a particularly festive mood. (Appropriately, perhaps, the biggest news story out of the gathering was the unfortunately timed re-emergence of Ann Coulter, who suggested that Democrat John Edwards was a “faggot.”)

In fact, only one person seemed to come out of the weekend with much to celebrate: Rudy Giuliani, whose strong second-place showing in the CPAC straw poll on March 2—along with a simultaneous photo-finish second-place win in a straw poll in conservative South Carolina, and an enormous lead in a new Newsweek survey—seemed to solidify his surprising position as the man to beat in the G.O.P. Presidential sweepstakes.

But even as Mr. Giuliani scored a symbolic victory with his strong showing at the conference, it was clear that the feelings toward him weren’t so much enthusiasm as resignation. Consistent with a deep distrust of the twice-divorced former mayor among the country’s most prominent social conservatives, activist after activist at the conference lamented that there were just no good options this year, and that Mr. Giuliani simply looked like the most likely winner in an election against Hillary Clinton.

“He’s the only one that can beat her,” said one West Coast radio host, nursing a scotch in the hotel bar after the Norquist party dissolved. “He’s not perfect, but he’s the best we can do.”

Out of Mr. Giuliani’s trifecta of weekend triumphs, last weekend’s CPAC vote was arguably the most important. Sure, straw polls are a fairly meaningless exercise—the D.N.C. had a staffer surreptitiously circling through the national press area at the event with a helpful list of previous “winners” including names like Gary Bauer—but you couldn’t beat this year’s vote for sheer symbolism.

Northeastern social liberals have not traditionally done well in this particular beauty contest. But while CPAC attendees may not have been in love with Mr. Giuliani—their hearts belong to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and Congressman Duncan Hunter of California, and Congressman Tom Tancredo of Colorado—they seemed, at least, to be fond of his prospects.

“He can win,” said 24-year-old Ember Bishop, who had previously seen the former Mayor during his recent visit to Gainesville, Ga. “He may be the only one who can. And we have to win.”

Of course, it may have helped Mr. Giuliani that his main rival in the polls, Senator John McCain, wasn’t there.

(According to a number of sources involved in organizing the conference, Mr. McCain’s campaign planned to skip the event, then tried to book space at the Omni Shoreham after learning that Mr. Giuliani was attending, then skipped the event anyway. The campaign disputes this account, pointing to the Senator’s prior commitment to attend a fund-raiser in Utah.)

And despite Mr. Giuliani’s strong showing, the conference this weekend served to illustrate some of the logistical shortcomings of his campaign, which only recently hired its first full-time staffer in the crucial primary state of Iowa.

Visitors couldn’t go five feet in the bowels of the Omni Shoreham without running into a smiling volunteer for CPAC straw-poll winner Mitt Romney. The Giuliani campaign didn’t do any visible campaigning at all.

Yes, the light footprint was, at least in part, deliberately contrived. Having no visible organization on hand meant that a strong showing would look a lot like victory. It worked for the national media, which generally took the results as a win for Mr. Giuliani and a loss of sorts for Mr. Romney.

But the hands-off approach left fervent Giuliani supporters at CPAC high and dry, and well-connected converts, in essence, standing at the altar.

The former Mayor’s only visible grassroots effort came from Martha Stamp, a Rhode Island grandmother who spent the weekend sporting a homemade “RUDY” sign taped onto her wide-brimmed straw hat, and from a handful of college students in off-the-rack suits who met on a Rudy Giuliani fan club on Facebook. The group carried handmade signs—“Red Sox Fans for Rudy” and “Ladies ❤ Rudy”—in an epic, vain effort to meet the former Mayor, who was already gone by the time ABC reporter Jake Tapper tracked them down just after his speech.

(“Now, we’re going to turn the camera on—and when I say the Mayor’s name, that’s when you cheer,” he said. “If you want to cheer, of course.”)

“You know how many R.N.C. delegates are here?” asked veteran conservative activist Paul Caprio, as volunteers from rival campaigns tried to out-shout each other outside the exhibit hall and a man in a “Flip Romney” dolphin suit wandered past. “Easily 200 to 300—maybe more. You need to give them a way to get involved. But Rudy has no real grassroots operation just yet. And time is running out.”

Mr. Giuliani was also the only visiting candidate who didn’t make himself available to the talk-show hosts and bloggers based down in the riotous exhibit hall of the hotel, an oversight that had most of them grumbling behind their laptops. “It’s not rocket science,” said conservative columnist Michelle Malkin, surrounded by a sea of rapturous fans. “If you’re trying to win the base, you might try talking to them.”

Then there was his speech. The buildup was promising, with the venue at full capacity. But unfortunately for Mr. Giuliani, he followed National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre, whose rousing, us-against-the-world speech had the crowd on its feet.

By comparison, Mr. Giuliani—fresh from the 8 a.m. Acela—seemed tired, almost distracted. And his speech, heavy on qualifiers and careful distinctions, low on culture-war references, seemed to suck all the energy out of the room. He slipped in and out of the conference so fast that many attendees didn’t even realize he’d shown up until hours later. (Writer George Will, who introduced Mr. Giuliani, seemed dynamic by comparison.)

Shortly afterward, down in the exhibit hall, Mr. Caprio was grumbling to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. “We need a new guy in the race,” he said. “The ones we have now just aren’t cutting it.”

"People are up for conversions, for changes, for growing," he told me in an interview this week. "People love former alcoholics and drug addicts. You never have anybody on the 700 Club who always went to church and was nice. 'Now, homosexual prostitutes who took drugs and don't do that anymore -- yeah, we like you!'"

Norquist said that Giuliani's subtle new strategy for dealing with his past apostacies could work, but he thinks that Romney's more overt change of heart is going to end up being the more successful one.

"The argument made out by Romney is actually the better one, as articulated on abortion," said Norquist. "'I used to be pro-choice and so stated it, but now I have had a change of heart and now I'm not.'"

The trick, he said, is to make it believable.

"That's called winning when people want to be on your team. Conservative movements should be willing to accept conversions one way in one direction, one time," said Norquist. "As long as someone has a credible explanation as to why."

--Jason Horowitz

The President has sent legislation to Capitol Hill that would “clarify” the parameters available to those who interrogate prisoners in the war on terrorism. His bill would apparently permit the use of “waterboarding,” which simulates drowning, and “long time standing,” which is exactly what it sounds like (with shackles), as well as sleep deprivation, constant loud noise and death threats.

To oppose any of these methods, or so the political advertising would claim, is to jeopardize national security, endanger our troops and coddle terrorists. That is how Republican strategists hope to make voters forget the incompetence and corruption on display in Washington, Baghdad and New Orleans and let the party escape disaster in the midterm elections.

Their strategy, however, has been thwarted so far by a single simple fact: The leading opponents of torture in the Senate include three Republican veterans—John McCain of Arizona, John Warner of Virginia and Lindsay Graham of South Carolina—and perhaps as many as nine other Republicans, along with most of the Senate Democrats. They refuse to sanction interrogation techniques that obviously violate Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Voting for the Bush bill means, in effect, not only legalizing those forms of abuse but, even more significantly, repealing the ratification of the conventions.

Whether George W. Bush and Dick Cheney realize it or not, official withdrawal from the Geneva Conventions, which date back well over a century and represent generations of military tradition, is an exceptionally heavy responsibility.

Clearly, Messrs. Bush and Cheney cannot comprehend the damage they are doing to American dignity, credibility and prestige. This is, after all, the same President who has repeatedly told the world that the United States doesn’t use or condone torture. His public negotiations with the dissident Senators over torture techniques have created one of the worst spectacles in modern history.

But this blithe attitude toward barbarism only reflects the broader degradation of the Republican Party and the conservative movement under their present leadership. While there are courageous Republican politicians willing to fight the torture bill, the President knows that most of his party’s leaders are on his side in this debate.

It is strange but true that the country’s most prominent spokesmen for the Prince of Peace and for tradition and morality are also its most outspoken proponents of torture. These worthies are unfazed to learn that this government is responsible for the bloody medieval abuse of innocent men, like the Canadian citizen Maher Arar, who was sent to a Syrian dungeon on baseless suspicion.

The Reverend Louis Sheldon, who heads an organization called the Traditional Values Coalition, has indignantly warned Senator McCain that opposing torture may mean forfeiting the support of evangelical leaders in 2008.

What are we to make of the fact that men like the reverend, who refer to themselves as “Christian” while obnoxiously suggesting that other Christians are inferior in faith and character, now tell us that we must support the horrific abuse of prisoners?

What “traditions” and “values” do Mr. Sheldon—and, for that matter, the devout Mr. Bush—truly uphold? What kind of conservative promotes the violent abuse of people who have been convicted of no crime?

It can only be the same kind of conservative who hopes to use torture as a “wedge issue” to divide the nation and win the next election. That is the express desire of the editors of The Weekly Standard and of Grover Norquist, the leading Republican lobbyist and strategist. All of them are furious at Senator McCain, as Mr. Norquist put it, for “confusing the message.”

We should hope that he and his colleagues continue to ignore the right-wing demagogues and opportunists, and instead heed the wise counsel of Lieutenant General John Kimmons, the U.S. Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, who explained the other day why torture is such a costly mistake.

“I am absolutely convinced [that] no good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices. I think history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the last five years, hard years, tell us that,” said the general. “Moreover, any piece of intelligence which is obtained under duress, through the use of abusive techniques, would be of questionable credibility, and additionally it would do more harm than good when it inevitably became known that abusive practices were used. And we can’t afford to go there.”

His words summarize the view of the professional officers who have been working so bravely to restore the honor of the armed forces. It is they who represent tradition, values and patriotic faith.

The President has sent legislation to Capitol Hill that would “clarify” the parameters available to those who interrogate prisoners in the war on terrorism. His bill would apparently permit the use of “waterboarding,” which simulates drowning, and “long time standing,” which is exactly what it sounds like (with shackles), as well as sleep deprivation, constant loud noise and death threats.

To oppose any of these methods, or so the political advertising would claim, is to jeopardize national security, endanger our troops and coddle terrorists. That is how Republican strategists hope to make voters forget the incompetence and corruption on display in Washington, Baghdad and New Orleans and let the party escape disaster in the midterm elections.

Their strategy, however, has been thwarted so far by a single simple fact: The leading opponents of torture in the Senate include three Republican veterans—John McCain of Arizona, John Warner of Virginia and Lindsay Graham of South Carolina—and perhaps as many as nine other Republicans, along with most of the Senate Democrats. They refuse to sanction interrogation techniques that obviously violate Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Voting for the Bush bill means, in effect, not only legalizing those forms of abuse but, even more significantly, repealing the ratification of the conventions.

Whether George W. Bush and Dick Cheney realize it or not, official withdrawal from the Geneva Conventions, which date back well over a century and represent generations of military tradition, is an exceptionally heavy responsibility.

Clearly, Messrs. Bush and Cheney cannot comprehend the damage they are doing to American dignity, credibility and prestige. This is, after all, the same President who has repeatedly told the world that the United States doesn’t use or condone torture. His public negotiations with the dissident Senators over torture techniques have created one of the worst spectacles in modern history.

But this blithe attitude toward barbarism only reflects the broader degradation of the Republican Party and the conservative movement under their present leadership. While there are courageous Republican politicians willing to fight the torture bill, the President knows that most of his party’s leaders are on his side in this debate.

It is strange but true that the country’s most prominent spokesmen for the Prince of Peace and for tradition and morality are also its most outspoken proponents of torture. These worthies are unfazed to learn that this government is responsible for the bloody medieval abuse of innocent men, like the Canadian citizen Maher Arar, who was sent to a Syrian dungeon on baseless suspicion.

The Reverend Louis Sheldon, who heads an organization called the Traditional Values Coalition, has indignantly warned Senator McCain that opposing torture may mean forfeiting the support of evangelical leaders in 2008.

What are we to make of the fact that men like the reverend, who refer to themselves as “Christian” while obnoxiously suggesting that other Christians are inferior in faith and character, now tell us that we must support the horrific abuse of prisoners?

What “traditions” and “values” do Mr. Sheldon—and, for that matter, the devout Mr. Bush—truly uphold? What kind of conservative promotes the violent abuse of people who have been convicted of no crime?

It can only be the same kind of conservative who hopes to use torture as a “wedge issue” to divide the nation and win the next election. That is the express desire of the editors of The Weekly Standard and of Grover Norquist, the leading Republican lobbyist and strategist. All of them are furious at Senator McCain, as Mr. Norquist put it, for “confusing the message.”

We should hope that he and his colleagues continue to ignore the right-wing demagogues and opportunists, and instead heed the wise counsel of Lieutenant General John Kimmons, the U.S. Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, who explained the other day why torture is such a costly mistake.

“I am absolutely convinced [that] no good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices. I think history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the last five years, hard years, tell us that,” said the general. “Moreover, any piece of intelligence which is obtained under duress, through the use of abusive techniques, would be of questionable credibility, and additionally it would do more harm than good when it inevitably became known that abusive practices were used. And we can’t afford to go there.”

His words summarize the view of the professional officers who have been working so bravely to restore the honor of the armed forces. It is they who represent tradition, values and patriotic faith.