"I could be wrong; I wrongly predicted that there was no way Libby could be convicted, but juries can do amazingly ignorant things sometimes."

Since you have such a strong reaction to the jury in the Libby trial, should we assume that you are a lawyer practicing criminal law and were present in courtroom throughout that trial?

"Here's my definition of 'sarcasm:' One hundred dollars says Karl Rove will never, ever be convicted of anything in relation to the firing of the eight U.S. Attorneys."

I'd say "Hey, excellent usage of the word 'definition'!", but that would be sarcastic.

"Just like the federal government can not profitably operate a legal whorehouse, they are unable to run a pension plan— which are generally considered one of the more lucrative and sought after pools of money in the private market."

Yes, but as the latest economic crisis has shown, nobody else really knows how to run a pension plan either.

"There is no more important objective to the progressive cause than establishing complete independence from the craven opportunists that populate the Democratic Party."

That appears to be what hardline conservatives are thinking right now, except change "progressive" to "conservative" and "Democratic Party" to "Republican Party." May I suggest seeing how that works for them before trying it on our side?

"Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., added an amendment to the bill that is absolutely unrelated to credit cards: the right to carry concealed weapons in national parks!"

It's been a while since I sat for the Florida Bar exam, but if I remember right, that kind of tomfoolery is not allowed under the Florida constitution (something about how a bill can't be about more than one thing and/or the title of the bill has to actually explain what the bill is supposed to do). How about, instead of amendments regarding banning flag burning and gay marriage, someone proposes an amendment to prohibit stuff from being added to bills which have nothing to do with what the bill is supposed to do?

"So much wasted ink here @ Salon."

Ink? These are interwebs, dude.

"The Democratic leaders would rather have a Republican (Specter) than an actual Democrat."

Depending on how the poll was conducted, perhaps Penn Democratic primary voters also would rather have Specter than a real Democrat. Disappointing, but sometimes that's just the way these things go.

Finally, a War Room story that doesn't make me irritated at somebody -- I love America!

One branch of my family has been here since the Puritans. One ancestor personally got a chuck of Pennsylvania from William Penn. Hell, one long lost relative was Cherokee. Does this mean I get to pronounce "Krikorian" any damned way I please?

Apparently, the answer is yes, I do get to pronounce his name as I see fit.

As noted in the post, "nutpicking" is "sifting through the comments of blogs, email threads, discussion groups and other user generated content in an attempt [to] find choice quotes proving that the advocates for or against a particular political opinion are unreasonable, uninformed extremists."

The key here is "user generated". AK was quoting Erick Erickson, "the editor-in-chief of Red State." What the editor-in-chief posts is not "user generated." What you post and what I post on Salon.com's comment section is "user generated." What AK posts in War Room is not. See the difference?

If you real the complete text of the speech, and not just the "I hope that a Latina woman" sentence, and *still* believe Sotomayor is the second coming of Bull Connor, then I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.

Since apparently we can never release these worst of the worst, nor can we bring charges against them, nor do we need to ever bring charges against them, and since we must incarcerate them indefinately on an island off the continental United States due to the grave danger they pose, I propose that we drop them from airplanes over Taliban and Al Qaida bases without parachutes. This will strike fear in the hearts of our enemies and make it more likely that they will surrender. Also, it will be more cost effective than incarcerating them for years waiting for them to die of natural causes or suicide.

"Interesting, isn't it, how empathy in a legal context is a perfectly reasonable thing ... as long as it's empathy for the correct people."

I think the word you are searching for is 'sympathy', not 'empathy'. Just because you *understand* the feelings of another does not mean that you will feel allegiance with them or feel bad for them and their problems.

My house in the mid '90s wasn't like those described in this article. I think a lot of had to do with the fact that we didn't haze. I think that hazing degrades the people involved -- when you are basically torturing someone, even with their consent, it ups the ante for what you are capable of doing and anesthetizes you against inhumanity to others who may or may not be consenting. Probably also helped that we went to a very small college where you couldn't get away with trashing someone's reputation, much less gang rape. There definately was a lot of sexism and homophobia though. There were also some members who were quite progressive (one had a bumper sticker that said 'poverty is a form of violence'). Yeah, I'm pretty ambivalent about it now.

Al-Qaida may have killed over 3000 Americans on 9/11, but they never suggested America should have universal health care or that the top marginal rate be raised (back) to 39%! That's anti-American!