Well, I don't want to get into a protracted argument about this here . . . but I'll have to respectfully but strongly disagree with your last point; I don't think the impeachment question is really all that "complicated."

If Bush isn't impeached, then no president should ever be impeached. He is the most flagrantly and destructively criminal president in American history. If people chuckle at that description, it's only because we've been trained to dismiss every expression of concern for our Constitution as hyperbole. It isn't the right of Congress to seek impeachment, or even an issue that Congress has a right to wrestle with; Congress has an obligation to impeach this rogue president.

A separate problem is that the Republicans would never have hesitated to impeach a Democratic president who was known to have committed a series of felonies, while a Republican must literally threaten the destruction of the country in order to be impeached. So yet again, we have one political party that aggressively advocates for its constituency, and another that more often seems ashamed of its constituency, and will do nothing to enforce even the most fundamental Constitutional protections.

If the impeachment question seems "complicated," it's only because we've become so accustomed to Republican criminality and corruption, and the indifference and cowardice of politicians like Pelosi and Reid.

1) Glenn, I've talked to all of the Democratic presidential candidates this week (I live in Eastern Iowa), and I've done my meager best to make them uncomfortable with my questions about FISA and telecom immunity. I caught Chris Dodd at a little pub in Riverside (famous as the future birthplace of Star Trek's Captain Kirk), and he was damned impressive . . . although I get the feeling that even Dodd doesn't really understand why the Democratic Congress has such a low approval rating.

The good news is that two of the leading candidates -- Obama and Edwards -- made the restoration of habeas corpus, and the closing of our lawless prison sites, a central part of their stump speeches. (Clinton, not so much.)

I always expect the worst, but this time I'm reluctantly predicting a happy outcome: based only on the conversation around here (including conversations I've had with my upstairs neighbors working on the Clinton campaign) I think Clinton's on her way to a third-place finish here -- though I don't know whether the winner will be Edwards or Obama. (One of my Hillary neighbors predicts a huge victory for Obama. We'll see.)

2) While Nequals1 and others are posting links to independent media:

I've heard that there's this amazing new blog -- daysofindustry.blogspot.com -- that blends insightful political commentary and witty pop culture critique. I haven't yet had a chance to take a look, but if it's even half as good as I've heard, it'll be the most scintillating new web experience of the year.

Oh, all right: it's my blog. And it badly needs one of Bebop-o's signature stream-of-consciousness comments.

Nobody needs to "be reminded that the world is dangerous." We're sick of hearing it! It's so facile, and the people who keep repeating it just end up peddling the same solutions.

Frankly, I'd prefer a candidate who lacks the "experience" of voting for the idiotic Iraq War, and then voting, years later, for Bush's damn Iran adventure, as Hillary did when she made the armed forces of Iran a "terrorist organization."

Hillary Clinton bet on the public's appetite for war as a cynical political strategy. I pray to God it backfires, and that the voters of Iowa, New Hampshire, and all the other states sanely opt for Obama.

I'm so disappointed in Salon for continuing to run these third-rate hit pieces by Joe Conason. Is this the best you guys can do?

Joan Walsh, are you reading these comments? Is your attitude more or less like that of the editors of the Washington Post -- that it's "a good sign" when readers post angry comments, that such comments are evidence that the site is "controversial" and "edgy," that it's "promoting a dialogue?"

Conason's work, in spite of how much it's irritating the Salon readership, isn't controversial or edgy; it's formulaic, facile, and hackneyed. I'm sick of seeing it. Why is Salon so invested in extending the Clinton dynasty?