"no proof." You *have* to be kidding. All you have to do is *look* at the guy to see the proof, let alone all the other evidence that he's been using illegal hormones for years.

You are in denial Joan.

Tell me you didn't mean it. No proof? What planet are you living on?

I just cannot believe anyone takes that guy seriously. I can't believe anyone takes ANY of the GOP candidates seriously.

But, then, I couldn't believe anyone took GW Bush seriously either.

Somehow..our political system seems busted.

On the other hand, if we elect Clinton or Edwards, or even Obama, some of my faith will be restored.

When Bill Clinton came into office, and he promised to reform our medical insurance system, I really thought he would do it. I had more faith in my government than ever before, in 1993 and 1994. When insurance companies and the Right took the plan down in flames (with an assist from Bill and Hillary themselves), my faith ebbed, and it's been ebbing ever since.

If we can get a Democrat in the White House for the next eight years, a reasonably intelligent, not TOO utterly corrupted professional, we might have half a chance to restore some of what makes America a place worth living in.

It's not a perfect solution, but, Heaven knows, it's better than another four years of incompetent, corrupt, demogogic GOP rule.

All those people who are so afraid and resentful of the Democrats..I just don't get them. Most of the people who voted for Bush voted *against* their own interests. That can be clearly shown. It can still be shown. By any measure, I'd be willing to bet that most people who voted for Bush would be better off now had Gore been elected to two full terms.

And that is why I think our system is busted. Voters are not rational actors. The result of their actions is NOT in their best interest, and thus, not in the country's best interest.

Nothing to see here. Just a bunch of human beings who fall *well* below the average intelligence quotient.

I can't blame Scherer. Truth be told, there is very little reason to GO to a state fair, esp. one in the midwest, unless yer gonna eat some 'o' that great food.

Otherwise, the only real entertainment is watching all the fat people, and watching the animals take a crap.

the *last* thing anyone should want, in an impending declining-energy-source-world, is more affluence.

Every person who climbs out of poverty uses more energy. They use more energy climbing out, and they use a LOT more energy once they've climbed out.

You think an illegal immigrant from the hills of Guatemala uses the same amount of energy here in the US as they did in Guatemala? Thought not. It's an elementary thought-problem, with an elementary solution.

It's also brutal reality: we can't *afford* for all the poor people to get less poor. The energy that's left will be used up that much faster. Of course, in line with Swift's Modest Proposal, there is one benefit to using up the energy faster: fewer babies will be born, only to die later in misery, when the energy runs low.

These brute realities of human nature and energy use are all hidden from our sight. So long as the fiesta is sustained. Once the fiesta is over...these realities will become clearer. What the result will be, hard to say, although I'm betting we'll see a police-state in the US within my lifetime.

"global warming is an atheist plot to confiscate our pick-up trucks."

You think he's kidding. He's not. I meet these people now and then. They do exist. And it would not surprise me a bit if they believe exactly that.

Our country has way too many idiots in it...but with Bill the Cat back, maybe we can turn things around.

Wouldn't you be?

There is a fairly large number of well-paid people with a lot of status in think-tanks, the Federal government, the military, and in the MSM, all of whom are desperate, nay, probably frantic, to deflect away from themselves the direct responsibility they bear for the suffering and deaths of untold thousands of Iraqi innocents, as well as US soldiers, for no good reason other than the enrichment of defense contractors and their enablers in various countries, and the preservation of the political power of GW Bush and Dick Cheney. Those are the ONLY reasons we went to war, and they're the only reasons we stay, now.

These people are going to fight like cornered weasles to avoid accountability for their actions. That fight has been ongoing for awhile.

It has been ever thus. And the mistakes made here are really, really severe. The kinds of mistakes that usually result in firings, loss of reputation, and, really, utter ruin.

But, so *many* in our power structure are responsible for this grotesque mess in Iraq that they are all protecting each other in this frantic piece of flim-flammery. I doubt *anyone* will be ruined by this war. Not one of the people who should be figuratively tarred and feathered for their role in this debacle, will lose even a single dollar of wealth, nor a single jot of status.

Thus does the power structure in this, or any, social organization, protect its own.

Great article Glenn. Yours is an irreplaceable voice in all this, and historians will find your work a treasure-trove.

I just wish it could have some effect NOW.