I spoke too soon ...

Perhaps my last comment was a bit too flush with optimism for "the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time" and for the progress of the American South.

At least, I'm tempted to think so upon reading the comments of Paul Broun, Republican Congressman from Georgia's 10th district, just reelected with 60.7% of the vote:

"It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he's the one who proposed this national security force," Rep. Paul Broun said of Obama in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. "I'm just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may — may not, I hope not — but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism."

Broun cited a July speech by Obama that has circulated on the Internet in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military.

"That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did," Broun said. "When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist."

[ . . . ]

"We can't be lulled into complacency," Broun said. "You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I'm not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I'm saying is there is the potential."

If an increase of a few percentage points in the top tax rate is "radical socialism or Marxism" and some sort of neo-Peace Corps is the functional equivalent of the Sturmabteilung, what in God's name would the Honourable Mr Broun have made of FDR?