"before I hurl in the faces of uppity Democrats who define themselves with their poorly picked battles"

Battles? So – trying to saving the country from the christian Taliban, polluters, book burners, economic servitude, a hamstrung and irresponsible media, and woman haters is a bad thing?

"So what John McCain in pandering to the Christian Right. So what he's pro-life. He's just playing by the rules"

The rules? As in, 'I make the rules so you have to live with them'? Many people who make your claim wrote the rules to their advantage.

"I like the man as an Independent because he comes out blazing on just about any important issue…"

Yep, its called ‘shooting from the hip” and is a lousy way to govern.

"the biggest issue of the day - immigration - an issue on the side of which you should be proud to ally with the Senator from Arizona…"

Immigration is the biggest issue of the day? You got that right – the day. This issue will not be solved by the ranters on Fox/CNN or the brainless in Congress who want to rush out some plan, any plan, before next election.

"if you're an explodingly liberal self-aware benevolent Democrat - Like any God-fearing Prez hopeful Democrat would do to court the Union vote or Hollywood vote, McCain is chasing down the Christian Right. So what big deal."

Well, exploding liberals - did I miss the latest announcement on Fox? So what big deal you ask among your other incoherent ravings? If you can’t tell the difference between people who support economic justice and freedom in general over people who promote economic disparity and restrictions on freedom, then I guess to you it wouldn’t be a big deal.

"And about abortion, only intellectually dishonest simpletons of the first magnitude use this particular issue of women's health and privacy as the determining criterion of their political views...Grow up"

I am grown up and that I why I want to make my own decisions regarding my health care, including abortion. Unlike anti-choicers, I believe women have the moral authority, seriousness, and actual life experiences to make those decisions. Anti-choicers, for the most part, bow down to patriarchal religion and/or pure sexism in their drive to deny women access to abortion and birth control. They are damaging the hopes of women worldwide. Hey, maybe the liberation of women is the most important issue of the day!

“One issue that explodingly liberal Democrats deserve blame for in the current state of affairs in this country more so than either George Bush, Osama bin-Laden, and Barry Bonds, combined - all whom some may claim ought be dragged out into the street and thrashed - is the vast atavistic attention deficit pathologies in which so-called liberal experts fail miserably in every respect of political organization and mobilization. That is simply just how the game is played. McCain should have been nominated in 2000. Only he was up against Karl Rove and had his ass handed to him”.

Hey, there is that exploding liberal again, but I digress. So liberals failed to mobilize because they are loser liberals and so are now more responsible than that awesome trio you named but McCain failed because he was up against his co-republicanist Karl Rove? Sorry you insane freak but the only people responsible for the criminal state of affairs are the idiots who voted for Bush. I believe that includes McCain and my conservative Catholic neighbor who still tries to blame everything on Clinton including her church's clergy abuse.

“I grew up in a family of Democrats and still pay the rhetorical price at gatherings for my dithering support of the right causes, but only under the wrong name, as an Independent who pencilled in Howard Dean in 2004, I'm gathering my economic and cultural capital to register as a Republican solely in order to cast a vote for McCain in the primaries. Get organized get for real. And get over abortion. Democrats who vote lock-stock column check mark for pro-choice candidates are indistinguishable in my mind from Republicans who do the same along the column check marks for candidates who don't want fags to marry. A one-issue voter is a one-issue voter, any way you slice it. Democrats are totally weak.”

I’m sorry you are such a mess but you seem to be a one issue voter yourself, as long as the issue is McCain. What will you do after the primaries when the powerful christian Taliban outguns your candidate for an even more right-wing nutjob they like better? Oh, I know, blame the liberals.

In the meantime, maybe a letter to Cary Tennis is in order.

So do you think pro-life George Bush sees US soldiers and the citizens of Iraq as intrinsically souled? He's gotten enough of them killed so I guess he sees them as tissue and not humanity. That goes as well for the religious conservatives who never met a war or polluter or radical capitalist they didn't like but rant against abortion, gays, feminism and liberals. I guess for them humanity only matters when a woman has some control over one aspect of that within her body. The rest of humanity is just so much fodder for them.

I understand Joan Walsh's frustration, but Salon writers have got to learn to take a deep breath and ignore some people who don't deserve the energy you expend on them. People like Flanagan are elitists and scam artists and should be treated as such. When she stomps her little feet to get our attention the best thing to do is ignore her. It works with kids and dogs so maybe it will work with crazy anti-feminists as well.