A compilation you will find this week at Whiskey Bar - but these guys just hate American (and Jesus).  Fascism?

From the first days after 9/11, the Bush administration created a mythology that would spur reverence for both the president and the government.  Bush wrapped himself in a flag drenched with the blood of Americans who died due to the failure of the federal government he commanded, and sadly the people bought it — and still continue to buy it.

James Bovard
Lie and You Thrive
September 17, 2004

I don’t think there are yet real fascists in the administration, but there is certainly now a constituency for them — hungry to bomb foreigners and smash those Americans who might object.  And when there are constituencies, leaders may not be far behind.

Scott McConnell
Hunger for Dictatorship
The American Conservative
February 14, 2005

In short, what we have alive in the US is an updated and Americanized fascism [that] adores the head of state as a godlike figure who knows better than anyone else what the country and world's needs, and has a special connection to the Creator that permits him to discern the best means to bring it about.

Lew Rockwell
The Reality of Red-State Fascism
Lewrockwell.com
December 31, 2004

I remember when conservatives favored restraint in foreign policy and wished to limit government power in order to protect civil liberties. Today’s young conservatives are Jacobins determined to use government power to impose their will at home and abroad … From whence came the brownshirt movement that slavishly adheres to the neocons’ agenda?

Paul Craig Roberts
The Brownshirting of America
October 2004

It was the blindness of the conservative Right to the dangers which had been so evident, arising from their determination to eliminate democracy and destroy socialism and the consequent government stalemate they had allowed to develop, that delivered the power of a nation-state containing all the pent up aggression of a wounded giant into the hands of the dangerous leader of a political gangster mob.

Ian Kershaw
Hilter: 1889-1936 Hubris
1998

From my notes?

George Carlin - 

When fascism comes to this country, it won't be wearing jackboots; it'll be wearing sneakers with lights in them, and it'll have a smiley face and a Michael Jordan T-shirt on.  They learned the mistake of overt control.  They've learned how to be much subtler.  No, I don't think my vote would mean anything, and at the same time, it would make me very untrue to myself to participate in what I really think is a charade. 

As I said here last September, I don't like what is in the air, but I want to avoid being one more lefty yelling Nazi and fascist like so many others.  Bush is not Hitler.  And Karl Rove is not Hermann Goering.  Yes, Rove's grandfather was Karl Heinz Roverer, the Gauleiter of Oldenburg.  Roverer was Reich-Statthalter - Nazi State Party Chairman - for his region.  He was also a partner and senior engineer in the Roverer Sud-Deutche Ingenieurburo AG engineering firm, which built the Birkenau camp – according to this research.  But so what?  The father of Arnold Shwarzenegger was a Nazi officer, but Arnold, the German-speaking Austrian strongman, is our governor out here now.  That’s all in the past.

But is there something fascist and Nazi-like in the air?  The idea that Andrew Sullivan floated - the cult of the Great Leader - fascinates me, particularly in how it makes certain attitudes and behaviors almost inevitable.  But I don't know. 

The question that comes to mind for me is simple.  When a political leader becomes something like a cult leader, in the sense that his decisions and actions cannot be doubted or even questioned – as that would be unpatriotic and an attack to the personality of the leader – just what is going on?