There are different stripes and strains, of course, as with the left. (You all would not choose to be defined by Chavez, or Sharpton, or Schumer, or Pelosi, or Gavin Newsome, or Cynthia McKinney, now, would you?)

President Bush is by no means a perfect Conservative, any more than Clinton was a perfect liberal. Not by a long shot. I think No Child Left Behind was a mistake and a joke. I think creating the Department of Homeland Security was a mistake and a joke. I think caving on the Dubai Ports World fake-controversy was a mistake and a joke. I think nominating Harriet Miers was a mistake and a joke.

But on balance, I like President Bush's insistence on tax cuts that have produced good results for the economy, I like the aggressive war on terrorism, I like the restraint (I'd like a lot more) on discretionary spending, and more than anything I like his judicial appointments.

Not at all a perfect conservative record but a good one. Obama will do none of those things.

Bipartisanship, shmipartisanship

Chances are the dems are going to increase their majorities in the house and the senate (buh-bye Lieberman!) so hopefully the idiots who support what bush has done to the country and have called anyone who disagrees a traitor or terrorist can be ignored when they suddenly begin crying for bipartisanship.

-- FilthyHarry

First, Joe Lieberman is not up for reelection for another four years. His Senate term is 6 years.

Next, Republicans don't call anyone who disagrees with us a "terrorist." But we are willing to call terrorists "terrorists." The ACLU wants to call terrorists "defendants."

Finally, I have little doubt about the outcome of the next general election. One side, yours or mine, is bound to be extremely disappointed. I just hope and expect that it will be your side that is so disappointed. If moderates and bipartisan-minded independents know their issues, they will vote for McCain, and not Clinton or Obama.

"Elephantdung" is hard of reading....

[Elephantdung]:Barack as the "Magic Negro" was not invented by Rush Limbaugh, and if you paid any attention at all, you'd have known that.

So here is your remedial education in the literary notion of "the magic negro" courtesy of Wikipedia...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Negro

Um-hmmmm. And if you actually click over and read the page, you see:

The magical negro is typically "in some way outwardly or inwardly disabled, either by discrimination, disability or social constraint," often a janitor or prisoner. He has no past; he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist. He is the black stereotype, "prone to criminality and laziness." To counterbalance this, he has some sort of magical power, "rather vaguely defined but not the sort of thing one typically encounters."

No, nothing disparaging in His Emanence Rush's song. He was complimenting Barack....

And no one here credited El Pilonidal Cyst as having "invented" that. He's too stoopid for that; he's just the big mouth...piece.

Now FOAD, "Elephantdung"....

Cheers,

-- Arne Langsetmo

Of all the idiots writing letters to Salon, you are special.

To clear it all up for you: No, Rush Limbaugh didn't invent the term "Magic Negro" and no, he wasn't the first to apply it to Obama. Rush was responding, in a highly clever and memorable way (such that it is continually talked about, on forums as far-removed as Salon), to an article about Obama's charisma in which SOMEBODY ELSE applied the term "magic negro" to Obama. In that regard, "magic negro" was not being used as an epithet; rather, it was an attention-getter in a newspaper column. The intent of Rush Limbaugh was to ridicule Obama's growing legend for charisma, and to also lampoon a press corps that appears to be fawning over Obama.

All you've done, Arne, is to prove that you are too dumb to understand the Rush Limbaugh Program, which is not that high of a bar to begin with.

As for accusing me of being a racist, I can say to you, with all sincerity, fuck you.

I didn't bring up the subject of bipartisanship. It is not a trait that I am particularly keen on.

But it is something that, with no basis in fact, some Obama supporters keep bringing up in support of their guy. And the exact opposite is what is true! Obama has no real credentials in "bipartisanship." Or at least none that can compare with John McCain, who might just be the most notable example of someone who has made the greatest of personal political risks in the pursuit of his own bipartisan principles.

Look, I don't doubt that the Salon readership despises "the Gang of Fourteen" Senators, for the opposite reasons that I also despise them. But McCain was one of them, and Obama wasn't. The Gang of Fourteen was bipartisan. McCain-Feingold (another mistake in my book) was bipartisan. McCain's controversial (for its extreme moderation!) position on immigration is bipartisan.

So what bipartisan legislative initiative do you credit to Obama? You probably can't name one. I don't think there is one.

If you are someone who likes "bipartisanship" as a quality in a good candidate, I submit that McCain is your choice. But that's not why I am supporting McCain. I don't care much for his bipartisanship. I just don't want a Democrat nominating federal judges.

You mean the same Charlie Peters who was a Kennedy Democrat and who is now supporting Obama?

"Swiftboat-spewing operatives who function in the shadows and the sewers"

Why is there no reciprocation?

-- JBinMO

There is. They call it the New York Times.