This just shows what happens when you start believing your own propaganda.

In reality, cynical Republican political operatives foolishly attempted to exploit the 9/11 attacks of 20 guys with boxcutters and an audacious plan, resulting in a self-inflicted disaster costing an additional 4000 dead and tens of thousands of maimed Americans and $2 trillion in economic damage.

Lincoln was a success. The actions of George W. Bush define the word "debacle."

The fundamentalists/dominionists/reconstructionists must feel their god is an incompetent one. After all, their supreme being apparently needs human assistance in running the universe via stonings, decapitations, public rituals, etc.

I can understand their frustration. Despite the burnings at the stake and other persecutions, The Big Guy has been a no show for at least 2000 years, or so the story goes.

Replacing that titan of the civil rights movement, Thurgood Marshall, with a self-loathing opportunist like Thomas must have been a real joke in the GHW Bush White House.

Once the Dems have the presidency and iron-clad majorities in Congress, impeachment inquiries for perjury at their confirmation hearings should be held for Thomas, Alito and Roberts.

American political coverage primarily sucks for three reasons:

a) Reporters just don't seem to be bright enough or brave enough to separate spin from reality. With few exceptions, the press corps' slack-jawed credulity produces nothing short of stenography.

b) Reporters aren't seeing the big picture. Iraq is off the screen completely; last week's most critical issues don't even merit a mention this week.

c) Limiting political reporting to horse-race coverage allows broadcast time and page space to be filled without having to make controversial/tough ethical decisions about (a) and (b).

..The never-ending litany of Clinton "scandals" which still resonate today, i.e., the caricature of the evil, cold and calculating Hillary.

Amazingly, these smears are so successful that even perfectly sensible liberals have been, and continue to be, snookered.

Is there any evidence that congressional Democrats are actually members of a political party?

I haven't seen any signs of political will exhibited by the Democrats in Congress since the era of George Mitchell and Dick Gephardt -- back in the early 1990s.

It's amazing how many Clinton haters -- even liberals in good standing -- are unknowing victims of a decades-long propaganda campaign against the Clintons.

Ask them why they hate the Clintons, specifically, and they mumble and stutter. It's like a scene from The Manchurian Candidate.

And if anyone's wondering, I'm personally leaning towards Obama. I just hate to see the lingering success of the Arkansas Project, as brilliantly exposed by Conason and Lyons in their Hunting of the President.

It's difficult for voters to formulate an unbiased reaction to Bill Clinton's statements since everything he says or does is distorted beyond all recognition by the Republican Noise Machine, as well as by an all-too-obviously hostile M$M.

Campaign for his wife? What a horrible, horrible man.

All this talk about "injecting race" into the contest is a media creation. The TV news-whores need a conflict to build a dramatic narrative around and the Clintons have always been their favorite whipping boy/girl.

For christ's sake, is it so outside the realm of political experience for a politician to attempt to minimize an electoral whuppin'? That's all we're seeing with the Jackson comparison -- not a diabolical return to Jim Crow.

I submit that those who are huffing and puffing nonsense like "I will vote for John McCain before I ever vote for Hillary Clinton," are the unwitting, unthinking victims of 16 years of right-wing anti-Clinton character assassination.

BTW, whis defense isn't from a Clinton partisan -- I'm leaning towards Obama.

Can we all at least agree that whomever that person is -- Clinton, Obama, Edwards, or in the case of a deadlocked convention, a compromise candidate like Gore -- we shall all enthusiastically support the Democratic nominee?

Can I get an amen?

As usual, GG nails it.

Typified by the posterboy of "bi-partisanship," Joe Lieberman, bi-partisanship means that Dems must compromise on Republican policy initiatives -- never vice versa.

As GG illustrates, there is never a GOP compromise on Democratic legislative priorities.

The Democrats should forget "bi-partisanship" and concentrate on muscleing their agenda through -- and let the Republicans demonstrate "bi-partisanship" for a change.

Congress is ultimately the only enforcer of the Constitution's limitations on executive power.

If Congress refuses to act in the face of obvious presidential lawlessness, the president is a de facto dictator.

This Congress is as debauched as the president they have cowardly, foolishly -- and illegally -- empowered as dictator.

Maybe once -- not anymore. McCain's desperate ambition to be president has reduced him to just another shameless pandering hack.

One would think our so-called "press corps" would have noticed the difference by now.

The most egregious fact of this affair is that "The Leak" is obviously not a matter of national security, but sleazy political retribution.

Al Qaeda operatives have to assume they are the object of every surveillance tool at our disposal. Would they care, or would their activities be influenced at all, by the knowledge that their surveillance was not sanctioned by a court-approved warrant? Of course not.

Court-approved warrants only affects American citizens.

The subpoena of Risen (and any potential prosecution of him, his source(s) or the NYT) is strictly a matter of revenge for exposure of Bush-regime lawlessness. It has absolutely nothing to do with national security.

I don't know that they would do that for Obama. They don't know enough about Obama to hate him. They know enough about Hillary to hate her.

You mean: Their opinions about Hillary have been warped by a 16-year anti-Clinton propaganda campaign and fueled by an obvious disdain of, and bias against, the Clintons by the corporate media.

When pressed for a reason for their "Hillary hate," the vast majority can't even articulate one specific cause (other than for the propaganda-induced mind-reading variety).