Rob wrote:

When they begin to see their children die, when their spouses likewise pass away because of a lack of this or that medication or other medical service, when they witness friends and/or relatives being murdered…

The developing world is full of places where people live with great hardship, without civil or social safety nets and few modern amenities. Look at the misery and pain wrought by Katrina, and how the plight of its victims is becoming background noise, part of the norm. You don’t see Katrina survivors in the clocktowers with sniper rifles. It’s still a tenuous and debatable theory to say that the party in power will suffer political consequences this Fall.

Katrina exposes the lie of American exceptionalism underlying the notion that there will be hell to pay when Americans lose their privileges. After a few short-lived bouts of impotent rage (like at the NO Superdome) we are most likely to just become sadder, poorer and more bewildered, like people in the developing world everywhere…

And as another poster observed, we have continued to dismantle and turn away from New Deal and Great Society-style programs—state intervention in the economy, mandates and regulations, even (god forbid) centralized planning—that would give us a low-energy future that looks more like Europe and less like Algeria or Brazil.

Not normally the kind of thing I'm interested in, but I was anyway.

Unfortunately, the career of a writer can be as tenuous and long-suffering as that of an actor.

Didn’t Michelle Goldberg write an article not too long ago called “Jolting Joe” in which she reported that some observers see Lieberman as “a major source of incoherence in the Democratic Party.”

I also recollect that Goldberg reported that he had voted for the Bush tax cuts, whereas Shapiro’s article says he voted against them. I went to search the archives for Michelle’s article and got an error message. If anybody else that confirm that—either from the archives or another authoritative source, please share.

I have a “Dump Lieberman” sticker on my car, and it’s not solely about the war for me, and I resent reporters (as another did this morning on NPR) trying to turn the Connecticut Senate contest into an over-simplified one-note referendum on the war. Lieberman voted for bankruptcy “reform” and he told the Democrats to shut up and not criticize Bush for fear of damaging his credibility, after having jumped on the Clinton impeachment bandwagon in the 90s.

I used to think of Joe as Zell Miller of the North, but I noticed on the Dubai Ports Deal he bucked the Republicans as well as the Democrats to stand by his man Bush to support a state-owned company of a state that sent us two 9/11 hijackers, holds a population that is deeply anti-American, and that is boycotting Israel (imagine all the ports on the East Coast of the US being owned by a company that boycotts Israel).

And I deeply resent Lieberman’s Republican-style personal attacks on his critics, like when he indicts them for spewing “hatred,” instead of addressing the issues. There’s real reasons people are pissed at Joe (besides the war), and the reporter should be holding his feet to the fire about them.

Shapiro casually discards Lamont’s speech (“studded with Howard Dean-like rhetoric”), while breathlessly quoting Lieberman hack-talk at length (“It is something that speaks to this moment in our politics…”)

Shapiro’s losing credibility here. For a much better article on Lieberman, go into the archives and read Michelle Goldberg’s.

I wrote earlier in the letters on this article that I thought that Michelle Goldberg might have reported that Lieberman voted for the Bush tax cuts. The techies have fixed the problem with the archives and I should say now for the sake of accuracy that she didn't.

Thank you Salon, for finally reflecting the essential struggles of my existence as reflected in the light, life and times of dear Brad.

Damn Scotland...

Speaking as an American citizen, Marc Pengryffyn get's it right. Credit where credit is due...America does bear an inordinate amount of responsibility. And American voters deserve the most opprobrium of all...

Face it, if you're speaking up for American voters who reelected GW, then you're an apologist.

If it doesn't earn me a visit from the National Security Agency, maybe the terrorists who target American civilian voters have correctly appraised who their enemies are after all....

As one politcian once said to a reporter in Texas, "If you think these guys are bad, you should see their constituents"...

Check out the Robert Dreyfuss article over at the American Prospect this month titled, "Vice Squad" about Dick Cheney and the secretive Office of the Vice President. It goes into the best detail that I have seen yet of who the players are in the executive branch that wield the disproportionate power of the OVP—hard information to get since the OVP won't even reveal who works in the office. I won't quote anything for fear of being pummeled for taking something out of context.

I have to ask reading this—where then, are the liberal and Progressive American and Israeli jews that are stepping up in an organized way to represent themselves and their ideas, and to combat their misrepresentation by hard-liners and zealots?

Among American jews of all political strips, is it the difference between belief systems and values as expressed by Ms. Goldberg, or is it the difference between "hard" and "soft" support for Israel?

No one is stopping these ex-generals from going out and campaigning for opposition politicians (Democrats) in the House and Senate to bring the regime under control.