That in the midst of Obama's ardent denials that he is a Muslim or has had any Muslim schooling, and as he proclaims that he is Christian, a red white & blue homegrown American success story, and a professor of Amercian Constitutional Law, we are also to believe that Obama will be particularly persuasive with the Muslim world that he and his handlers are so elaborately distancing themsleves from?

Actually, the idea that Obama will "improve" relations with the Arabic and Muslim worlds is not so attractive to me if at the same time Obama's standard Democratic Party/Trade Union protectionism screws up our relations with our other economic trade partners:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120355836554181801.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks

Yes, my definition of "bipartisan" is that it must be serious bipartisanship, on a serious issue.

What serious issue is there - Iraq, health care, immigration, national security, tort reform, judges -- on which Obama hasn't taken the orthodox liberal Democrat position in the Senate?

Please don't bother me with Obama's co-sponsorship of legislation on trivialities. You could do well to answer this question: What legislative positions has Obama taken that are compromise positions which offend his party's base? (As I have noted with McCain.) Of those, what positions has Obama taken in the interest of bipartisanship? (As per McCain's joining with the Gang of Fourteen.)

...what? I've never understood that. Why does the liberal American left have such a soft spot for Fidel? Such that he becomes Michael Moore's shadow Surgeon General, and Oliver Stone's spiritual leader? What freedom and civil liberties do you see in Cuba?

Why the tolerance for someone like Castro who is a proven, lifelong totalitarian dictator, when there is such hatred on the left for George W. Bush, a twice-elected constitutional leader of the most free and wealthy democracy in world history?

Is it some long-lost longing for a socialist utopia? Or ordinary anti-American animus, the kind that led Jane Fonda to perch herself behind a North Vietnamese AAA gun, or that leads other celebrities to hang out with Hugo Chavez? Weren't we supposed to have grown up and gotten out of that mode by about 1975?

The Reason that Conservative Republicans Want To Treat Saudi Arabia So Gently Is...

...what? Is it because the Bushes have been cozy with the royal family for so long? Is it because they see a shared vision of religious fascism they long to emulate? Maybe it's because they just love the petrodollars that get kicked back to their campaign coffers.

You get the point, elephantman.

-- tedol

No, the reason that we treat Saudi Arabia so gently is because they control all that oil. And we want some stability in that region. The world economy is desperately dependent on that stability. And no "boycott" or war with Saudi Arabia could possibly improve that particular situation. As for how the right-wing criticizes the Saudis' support for Wahabbism, for violence-preaching madrassahs, for terrorist financing, etc., just get yourself a subscription to the Wall Street Journal or the National Review. You'll see more there than at Salon.

And so back to you; the corollaries with the left's favoritism for Cuba and Castro are, what, exactly?

Gee whiz, what's not to like about you? We agree! Co-opt the Cuban communists, mistrust the Vietnamese and Chinese communists, ridicule the tinpot Chavez.

Plus you've got a sense of humor. As for living in the USA, I am loving it, but there's no law that says if you really think we are the evil empire that you have to stay. But I hope you do because clever writers like you will always have a place here.

We Repblicans weren't very enthusiastic about McCain's sanctimonious preening over campaign finance reform to begin with. The fact that he might not have complied with rules that we despised and opposed is supposed to affect us how?

Second, let's assume that a) McCain accepted some duly-reported lobbyist money, and b) wrote a letter that he believed expressed a legitimate policy/regulatory concern that McCain believed in then and believes in today. Is that illegal? Unethical? Whatever intervention McCain attempted by way of a public letter was unsuccessful. McCain's writing of the letter might have been viewed by the FCC as inappropriate, and I recall that the FCC in fact said so. Let's assume all of that to be true. So what? McCain was lobbied openly. McCain's official activities were open. Isn't that what the Teamsters and the NEA and Emily's List are doing every single day of the week?

...that Howard Dean is back on the campaign trail. We had almost fogotten about him. With Howard Dean out there, I know that we Republicans have an excellent shot at the White House again. We'll take back Minnesota, and Wisconsin, and Michigan, and New Mexico, and California and Pennsylvania, YYYYEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!

we've gotten numerous statements, oral and/or written, from mccain, his wife, his daughter, his campaign team, the head of the lobbying firm that employs the lobbyist mccain was supposedly shtupping, and nearly everybody else... there's one conspicuous absence... i haven't seen or heard the lobbyist (iseman) herself...

should we be dragging the Potomac?

combing Rock Creek Park?

checking under the mccains' floorboards?

Somebody said she might be inside a car under 10 feet of water off a bridge in Chappaquiddick pond. Anybody look there?

I just can't understand it why you people wouldn't just accept it when a politician says, "I did not have sexual realtions with that woman..."

For instance, when Hillary says, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Abedin," we've got to believe it, right?

Know what I mean?

"If Hillary wants an advertisement in the Times she should pay for one like everyone else."

Or at least pay half-price like MoveOn.org does...