During the Bush years, Democrats and progressives (correctly) argued that Republicans always went along with whatever Bush proposed, usually unquestioningly even when Bush was unpopular. And we claimed that once we took power again we would not be that way; there would be debate before major laws were passed and a Democratic president would not get what he demands out of Congress. Congress is, after all, supposed to be a co-equal branch of government.

The Blue Dogs may, as Conason claims, be trying to kill healthcare reform for crass reasons. Some may, however, actually have legitimate beefs with the bill as it currently stands. By painting all 50+ House members of that group with such a broad brush as Conason is doing now belittles the diversity within the current Democratic Party that helped us achieve the presidency and strong majorities in Congress. Proclaiming them DINO's and alienating them will only lead to defeats for progressives down the road.

At least some of the Blue Dogs are negotiating in good faith with the leadership of the Democratic Party and truly want to pass substantive healthcare reform; we should not scare them away.

In essence, Democrats and progressives should not demand Republican-like loyalty to the President's agenda.

Your likeness to Hitler is inversely related to how much you kiss up to Israel -- especially its right-wing elements.

George W. Bush was an absolute professional at kissing up to the Israel lobby and the right-wing nutcases in Israel, also known as the Likud Party currently led by one nutcase-in-chief, Bibi Netanyahu. Nothing Israel did generally or nothing the Likud Party advocated specifically was ever publicly criticized by anyone in the Bush adminstration; instead, these interests were lavishly praised as "fighting terrorists," "expanding democracy," or whatever BS propaganda was popular back then (even nightmares get fuzzy after a time).

And for some utterly bizarre reason, your support for Israel -- even misguided, stupid, and crass support -- has come to represent support for the Jewish people as a whole. And anyone who doesn't 100% support Israel therefore doesn't support the Jewish people and is only a couple steps away from being the next Hitler.

Thus, Bush could not be Hitler. Obama can be Hitler because he has dared to tell Israel that it must honor agreements it has made regarding its settlements and other issues and that, yes, the United States can tell Israel what to do because the US gives Israel billions in free aid a year. This is at least the way most "Jewish" organizations think; it's sad, disturbing, and not reflective of the views of a majority of the Jewish people in America.

Republicans simply have no respect for a foreign policy that is not headed by them for the simple reason that they believe their way is truly the best way for America. Further, they believe that the vast majority of Americans support their foreign policy stances. Any and all evidence to the contrary of these beliefs is ignored.

This has blinded them to the harm that they are doing to America's long-term interests.

But it is not a new thing, by any means. I remember an episode during Clinton's presidency of Gingrich -- then third in line for the presidency -- going to China and impliedly criticizing Clinton's China policy. It wasn't as blatant as Cantor and Huckabee's actions today re Israel but there was a brief flurry of speculation in the media at the time (oh, how times have changed) that Gingrich was out of line since he was showing an America that was not at all united at its top levels even on important foreign policy matters.

The roots of Republicans' superiority complex re foreign policy can most probably be traced to Reagan, of course. By the luck of history and some relatively savvy moves on his part re the USSR, Republicans are able to claim credit that they "won" the Cold War, thereby justifying every lunacy in their foreign policy portfolio of the past 20 years.

All of them -- stock and other securities, commodities, the pollution credit market contemplated by "cap and trade," etc. -- are just one big scam.

Completely predicated on the belief that the "free markets" know best when it comes to what is best for the economy; Ayn Rand disciples even claim the "free market" will ensure freedom. How this idea is still so strong in this country -- at least among those who dictate policy -- just simply amazes me. Both parties are enthralled with the idea.

If we have learned one thing from the past couple years it's this: the markets don't know squat. They're absolutely terrible at predicting their own collapse as they exist 100% within a bubble, are prone to utterly impossible to fathom swings in prices.

These markets only exist to make money for the privileged few, who will make their money regardless of whether the markets are doing well (via actual investment profits) or when the markets do poorly (and they run screaming to the government for assistance because, ya know, if the market completely collapses, the economy is screwed). Total BS.

The rest of us just pay more regardless.

The number of reflexive "Apple and the iPhone are great and you're the idiot"-type comments in response to this article is almost cultish.

Scary.