Why must today's conservatives be stupid? You have to realize that there's a difference between people who support conservativism (i.e., the Republican Party) and those who speak for it.

Conservative voters are the rubes. It helps if they're stupid, because of the number of contradictory positions needed to support the Party of Bush. Conservative officials and spokesmen need to be smart enough to pull the old bait'n'switch, wool over the eyes, sophistic tricks and pseudo-legalistic arguments to keep the rubes in line. They generate the lies (like "Reaganomics Worked!") and repeatedly impress them on their sheep. They rewrite history whenever it's politically convenient, and broadcast their falsifications throughout the country, 24x7, on all channels, all stations, and nearly all newspapers.

There's a hard core of people willing to believe anything (it's looking like 20-25% of Americans). As Bush said in his 2000 campaign,

"you can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones I have to concentrate on."

The conservative "message" is for them, and it's plenty good enough.

"Tasty" is pretty revolting, too.

Per Borat, I like the term "vazheen". But, as was pointed out in another thread (and I apologize for not giving credit where credit is due), what we're referring to is actually the "vulva".

One of the GOP's secret weapons against Senator Clinton is that many on the left harbor a virulent hatred for her. The Left absolutely hated Bill, too, back in the early 1990s. It wasn't until Republicans went too far and impeached him that there was some rallying of support.

Senator Clinton will face nearly as much opposition from "progressives" as she'll get from the cons. Although people who have met her like her, and she has broad support nationally, we will do everything we can to bring in President Guiliani - and then whine about him for the next 8 years.

TomRitchford asks

"Here we have Colonel Boylan, an active duty soldier, who is *clearly spending a great deal if not all of his time working for the Republican Party*. Why is this not a matter for the gravest concern?"

Because most of us on the left have assumed that that's how the US military works?

Look how they treated President Clinton. Per Richard Clarke, Clinton could never get the military to put together a commando operation against Osama bin Ladin; the brass would hem and haw and swear that it was totally impossible, with less than 50,000 men and two years to plan it. They absolutely refused to honor Clinton's order to stop discrimination against gays, and we ended up with the abysmal "don't ask, don't tell" policy. They apparently, per some Congressman, even made death threats against Clinton, should he visit their bases. (The Congressman, a Republican, was both amused and approving.)

So now, "Colonel" Boylan appears to be working full time for the Republican Party. And I hear that a dog has bit a man. Stop the presses.

I don't see where you men get "whining" out of the statement "Ultimately, it was six guys against her, and she came off as one strong woman."

It sounds more like boasting to me - pride, if you will. If a man said it, it might come out as "Ultimately, it was six guys against me, and I came off as one strong S.O.B." Would you then criticize Mr. "B" for whining about how he was picked on? I doubt it - you would understand that he was bragging up his accomplishment at defeating six to one odds.

It's more significant in this race, where a substantial proportion of the population automatically thinks that a woman - ANY woman - has got to be inferior to any man. Senator Clinton can not only play with the big boys, she can defeat them, and when outnumbered, can still win. This is a big deal. Why gloss over it, or ignore it?

It's also a big deal that there's been so much concentrating on her with attacks and gotcha questions in the debates, at the expense of the other candidates. The celebrity moderators ought to be more fair - use the Clinton Attack Time to spread out questions to the rest of the field.

But it's more fun to hit a Clinton. After all, the bigtime media has been doing it for 15 years or so now, and it never disappoints.

Y'know, with all the viciousness and just plain disapproval coming at the Senator from the left, is it any wonder that she's not bothering to appeal to "the Democratic base"?

I apologize for this change of subject.

I agree that being able to handle a 6-on-one assault is an important characteristic for the ultimate Democratic candidate (the Republicans won't get anything but kid-glove treatment from the media, and we all know they're just whiny bullies, anyway.)

That said, each of the candidates needs to get The Treatment. Every debate should have - or better yet, consist of - a pile-on portion. Media "gotcha!" stars would select a series of questions for each candidate that causes a high level of personal embarrassment. The other candidates would then ask followups and make accusations - the more badgering, the better.

This would yield better results, in my opinion, than merely testing the apparently strongest candidate. How can we really know who can take the pressure, handle unfair and untruthful accusations, clarify fuzzy positions, unless each is tested in their most vulnerable areas?

Would Dennis Kucinich break into tears and flee the podium? Would Mike Gravel punch someone out? Would Senator Clinton use foul language? And would her campaign be made to pay the enormous FCC fines?

Wouldn't you want to see who prevailed, and who failed?