Woolsey over your eyes
I'm wondering, why is it that all the right-wingers are using the word "fascist" to describe this thuggish regime or that? This thought comes to mind reading David Corn's profile of James Woolsey in the Nation. Corn writes, of a Woolsey speech at UCLA:

He cited three enemies: the religious leaders of Iran, the 'fascists' of Syria and Iraq, and Islamic extremists like Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

Why fascists? I see no problem in using the word, but that's hardly an accurate term to describe what is in Syria really a rather weak and fretful semi-authoritarian hereditary republic. I rarely agree with the Nation (and I'm really not too fond of Corn's piece), but I've always found Woolsey to be an opportunist--as his incorrect use of an otherwise emotionally useful term proves--as well as a liar, particularly in his vain efforts to prove that a link existed between Saddam and Al-Qaida. He never offered a shred of evidence, which led me to wonder what this man was doing recycling intelligence at the CIA.

Then I learned that his passage there was regarded as catastrophic.