By “Machiavellian” I mean this sort of thing

A right wing which is enormously exercised by the fact that OBAMA GAVE A LITTLE TALK TO OUR SCHOOL KIDS AND TOLD THEM TO STUDY HARD AND STAY IN SCHOOL! YAHHHHH!!!! IT’S ALL PART OF HIS SCHEME TO DESTROY THE REPUBLIC!!!!! but which is oblivious to (and indeed contemptuous of) things like this:

Here’s what two Californians are being charged with:

The couple, Daniel Weston and Mary Ann Parmelee, and three other people are accused of luring their two victims to an office where the men were tied up, held for hours and beaten, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney said… Each count of felony torture, defined as inflicting “great bodily injury” for the purpose of “revenge, extortion, persuasion and for a sadistic purpose,” carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. Defense lawyers were not immediately available for comment.

So two civilians get a potential life sentence for tying up and beating two people for hours; but the former president of the United States and his underlings get off scott-free for tying hundreds up in excruciating stress positions for months, freezing victims to near-death (and over it), using the Khmer Rouge technique for waterboarding someone 183 times, inducing psychosis through sensory deprivation, keeping someone awake for 960 hours, and killing at least 20 and as many as 100 individuals.

It’s good to be the king in Washington. The elite media will never let their sources face, you know, the rule of law.

…is a right wing that is marvelously docile to its Machiavellian handlers and professional opinion massagers. The fact that a corrupt creep like Dick Cheney is as lionized by the bizarro right as Obama is by the bizarro Left is further confirmation (if any was needed) that political opinion in our culture is largely a matter of regurgitation of talking points received from Approved Tribal Elders and mediated to us through Vendors of Opinion functioning as a sort of ersatz priesthood who tell the Faithful what to think. One of the most ridiculous myths that Americans believe about themselves is the notion that we are a nation of Independent Minds who use our freedom to Think for Ourselves. Every member of the Herd of Dan Brown Readers talks that way just before he regurgitates some warm over and half digested bit of pseudo-knowledge. Why do we imagine for a moment our political discourse is any different?