Conservatives generally believe less government is better. They believe in personal responsibility, and avoiding dependence on the government. Conservatives go so far as to say an activist government fosters dependency by creating the expectation on the part of citizens that they will be taken care of.

That is what has happened in Iraq, in spades, and it is remarkable that the Republican leadership never saw it coming. What would make anyone think we could replace one government with another without creating a huge amount of dependency? What would make the White House think that our freshly installed Iraqi government would, out of a sense of moral responsibility, take on the massive financial burden of recovery when it is perfectly clear that the more inept they appear, the more the U.S. is going to take up the slack?

The Bushies have always preached tough love. Tough love would be getting the hell out of there, and making the Iraqi government do for itself for a change.

I saw it live. James came on and started yelling and Matthews says, Why do you have to yell? James says, When I come on your show, you always get me excited.

I was thinking: You mean Matthews has had that ignorant blowhard on before? 300 million Americans, and this is the best Matthews can do?

About appeasement: I get tired of hearing Neville Chamberlain trashed. I don't defend what he did, or say it was right, but some context is in order. In 1938, at the time of the infamous Munich treaty, World War I was a recent memory, and a horrible one at that. Europe was drained, and wanted to avoid war if at all possible.

Germany was the most powerful nation in Europe, and everyone knew it. It is one thing to appease an opponent you are equal to or stronger than, but when your enemy is a bully who is stronger than you are, that is something else. Chamberlain feared Germany was very powerful, and history proved him right: a year later, the Nazis whipped Poland, Holland, France, Belgium, and Luxembourg in nothing flat and came with a whisker of smashing the British army at Dunkirk, which would have ended the War right there. Giving into Hitler was a coward's move, but Britain and France had lot to be afraid of.

To top it all off, Britain was in the middle of the Great Depression at the time, which was worse there than it was in the United States. We're talking about the Great Depression here, with 30% unemployment, not the namby-pamby recessions we whine about now.

Again, not to completely excuse Chamberlain, but he was up against a wall, and to be fair to him and to Great Britain the entire context of the Munich treaty (which ceded most of Czechoslovakia to Germany in exchange for a promise to not invade any other countries) has to be considered. Our country has never been in such straits, never in any of our lifetimes. We were never so threatened even in the darkest moments of WWII. So we have to be careful about what we throw around.

We might, instead, simply be thankful that we have never had to face as a nation what Chamberlain did.

...is that Bush is going to attack Iran because he doesn't think the next president will do it. In his warped little mind, Bush is thinking that the next president will be encumbered by a Democratic Congress and by a grueling campaign in which the winner had to promise to stay out of Iran.

Bush may be thinking that if McCain wins he can take the pressure off McCain by committing the U.S. to an Iranian invasion before inauguration. If Obama, Bush may think he has to invade Iran now because a Demmocratic president won't.

I really think Bush is stupid enough to do this. He is so arrogant and untrusting that he won't risk handing the problem intact over to the next president.

It does seem strange that many adult products go for the green angle, such as food products that donate money to charities or outdoor products that make donations to the Amazon rain forest, and yet there are no movies yet that have socially conscious tie-ins.

What would be the matter with having a movie that promised to give a dollar, or 10% of every ticket to child obesity programs? Why doesn't a movie pair up with Nike, or Disney, and produce movie-inspired sports items that promote health and avoid the deleterious association with junk food?

This could be done very creatively, and interestingly. Chaquita Bananas and Curious George. Aslan on a carton of Florida orange juice. Or link Indiana Jones to saving the rain forest (he could be on a package of recycled paper products).

No, the cross promotion would not be as instantly profitable as a McDonald's tie-in, but it would promote the movie as socially conscious, which generates a more positive branding. That, after all, is what the green products on the store shelves aim to do.

Hollywood is so famously liberal. For once, you would think they could embrace their liberalism and make it worth something in the world.

Now that's a concept I can get behind. In the early primary season I had a great fondness for Biden, but couldn't figure out exactly why, other than the fact that he had the most foreign policy experience.

But this is it! Biden is an attack dog, in a way Obama can never be, in a way Clinton is not. Clinton attacks, but she tends to be personal and shifty about it, always playing the triangulation game. Biden just swings a two-by-four, GOP style. He would rack up some quick points on the campaign trail.

Biden could be Obama's Dick Cheney. Biden is the dark side, breaking fingers, cracking skulls, in the shadows if possible, in plain sight if need be. I would love to see Biden on the ticket.