In today's installment of Patriots, Walter reconnects with an old friend, an embittered veteran of the defeated Williams administration:

"I believed in 'hope and change,' 'what unites us is more important than what divides us,' 'we live in the United States, not the blue states and the red states.' All bullshit, but I believed it. I don't believe it now. The Constitutionalists decided it was war, they fought like it was a war, and they won. We didn't take it seriously enough, we believed in the system and played by the old rules. We lost. Well, I've learned my lesson. I'm not playing this game by those rules any more. You got a TV network to tell lies about me? I'll get a TV network to tell lies about you. You raise special-interest money? I'll raise special-interest money."

Then it's on to lunch with the editor of the most important magazine on the Constitutionalist side, the legendary Freddy Catesby:

"All those things I've accomplished, all the awards and accolades -- they mean nothing to me. I live for my principles, not for recognition. What I care about is fighting the Kultursmog. You know I coined the term?"

Read Chapters 7 & 8 here.

For those catching up late, the story to date.

Chapter 1, in which we meet Walter and Valerie, can be read here.

Chapter 2, in which Valerie and Walter move to Washington, is here.

In Chapter 3, Walter starts work in a Senate office, meets his first D.C. powerbroker, and learns the rules of Washington partisanship.

In Chapter 4, Walter's girlfriend Valerie gets a job too, as a party planner. The country's ruling class gives a lot of parties, after all, and even in a nasty recession, personal services to that class remain a growth opportunity.

In Chapter 5, Walter enters D.C.'s largest and most important conservative think tank. He discovers he is a "wealth creator" and begins to absorb the Constitutionalist philosophy.

In Chapter 6, the Right begins to feel "buyer's remorse" about its newly elected president. The first stirrings of mutiny are heard - and in Chapter 7 Daphne tries to draw Walter into the plot.

No installments this weekend. A final installment on Monday will bring us up to about 1/7 of the full story. The whole book is available to download. If you've enjoyed these opening chapters, I hope you will buy and read it - and encourage your friends to do the same.

And here again is my op-ed about why I'm doing all this.