Republicans, as the essential Orcinus has shown in a series of scholarly articles, have devised a remarkably effective system of meme transmission—as indeed they should have, given thirty years of experience and massive funding from Fruitcake billionaires.

So I thought it would be interesting—and maybe reduce our viral load and help strengthen our immune systems—to track one particular Republican meme, for which we've been present at the creation; the meme that the effort to bring "Scooter" et al. to justice represents the "criminalization of Republican governance."

This meme originated in that journal of iatrogenic political ideas, The Weekly Standard. Kristol writes:

But it's a reasonable bet that the fall of 2005 will be remembered as a time when it became clear that a comprehensive strategy of criminalization had been implemented to inflict defeat on conservatives who seek to govern as conservatives. And it is clear that thinking through a response to this challenge is a task conservatives can no longer postpone.

Now, we've had some experience, so we can put on our gloves and get even this toxic tangle of ideology, blameshifting, and misrepresentation into a decontamination chamber where we can work with it. To wit:

1. Watch for the passive voice, (a): "a strategy ...had been implemented..." By whom? Nameless hordes? The decapitated Beltway Dems? The SCLM? "The left"? Don't make me laugh! And if Kristol had any actual evidence, don't you think he'd be sharing it?

2. Watch for the passive voice, (b): "will be remembered as a time when it became clear..." Clear to whom? Remembered by whom? Everybody... worth knowing, I guess. Just like "everybody" knew that Saddam had WMDs when, in fact, we in the reality-based community spent countless days playing whack-a-mole with stories that later turned out to have been planted by a WHIG disinformation campaign.

So, to whom is it "clear"? Why, to the members of Kristol's totalizing system of political discourse, the "echo chamber," outside of which no truth can exist. Of course, what's "clear" to Kristol isn't clear to anybody I know--and probably not to the 80% of the American people who think there's something either unethical or illegal about the administration's actions in TreasonGate. None of us will remember the fall of 2005 as Kristol says we will. In fact, I'll remember it because of all the Googling I had to do for images of popcorn and champagne.

3. Watch for the leap in logic: Kristol leaps from the fact that powerful Republicans have been indicted--in several different jurisdictions, and for a variety of crimes, I might add--to the conclusion that they were indicted just for being powerful Republicans, and not for their [Bob in Legal insists we add "alleged" here] crimes. But there's no evidence or reasoning to back this up.

So, we can dust off our hands, having stomped Kristol, correct? Not so fast.

To our viral metaphor (any scientists reading this please correct!):

The HIV virus infects the immune system's T-cells with a "sugar hook" that has two parts: First, a sticky, squirmy sugar molecule ("gp120") latches onto the T-cell. Next, a second molecule ("gp41"), shaped like a needle, concealed from the T-cell by the first modecule, pierces the T-cell's membrane and infects it.

How the transmission of the HIV virus a metaphor for Republican meme transmission?

I suggest that points 1, 2, and 3 above are equivalent to the virus latching onto the T-Cell. They don't prevent us from being infected; in fact, they're just the technique the virus uses to get us to hold still for injecting the payload.

Where is the sugar hook? Where is the sugar hook that infects the cell?

The sugar hook--the Big Lie concealed with all the other, smaller lies--is the very idea that Republicans "seek to govern as conservatives." Because if you accept that Big Lie, fighting the smaller lies is a waste of time; there are too many of them.

In fact, Republicans don't want to govern at all. They want to destroy government; as Norquist famously said, to "drown it in a bathtub." They would never do that? We've got too much evidence of their tendencies at this point: (1) During Katrina, they actually succeeded in drowning the government; (2) in Iraq, they destroyed the government that was there, and put nothing in its place by refusing any semblance of postwar planning, and (3) examples too numerous to mention in the Federal government; the "war on science," for example.

So, if you don't fall for the sugar hook, you don't get infected. If you don't believe that Republicans want to govern at all---and surely the chaos and bungling and lying and looting in the malAdministration is evidence enough of this--then the notion that Republican governance is being criminalized suddenly seems as absurd as it is.

Let's carry the metaphor of Republican meme transmission as a lethal virus in the body politic one step further: to the idea of a political immune system.

Our political system used to be a free press and the checks and balances, both set up in our Constitution.

But the Republicans have made the notion of a free press as a check on the powers of the executive--note that I don't say "government"--laughable. Whitewater. Monica. Wen Ho Lee. Goring. WMDs. Swift Boat. Not to mention the stories that were never written (Ohio 2004).

No immune system, no resistance there!

Similarly, back in the day, when we were living under a Constitutional system, a Republic, the separation of powers provided checks and balances, as the founders intended. But the Republicans are governing from the House; they've created what is in essence a Parliamentary system of government. The House and Senate, the President, the Supreme Court--all are driven by the most radical Republicans in the House.

No checks, no balance.

No immune system, no resistance there!

It is up to us, then, to trace the mechanisms of transmittal and infection, and to devise our own remedies; to immmunize ourselves. If we know how the mechanism works, perhaps we can protect ourselves. We the people.

UPDATE And a little science for Republicans, carrying the metaphor one step further. As the scientists say:

"It's the most exciting thing we've ever been able to do," says Hendrickson. "When we got the structure, we had an experience of 'Aha! Now we know how this thing works!'"

The structure revealed that the sugars and the other missing regions must normally obscure the portions of gp120 that bind to CD4 and to the chemokine receptor, keeping them shielded from the immune system until HIV is ready to set its grappling hook into a T cell. The process by which HIV protects itself is "fascinating—in a stealthy sort of way," says Hendrickson. "HIV is an amazingly cunning beast for something without a brain."

"Fascinating... In a stealthy sort of way." Remind you of anything?