Godot my friend,

You clearly are a thoughtful individual. But the condescending message you broadcast -- a message adopted by many in the Democratic Party over the last four years -- has convinced me to vote Republican for the first time in my life.

Your weakness, and the weakness of Democratic Party leaders generally, consists of presuming that people who support the GOP are crazy or stupid. That line may work here at Salon, where 99% of readers sympathize with your position, but it repels the independent voters that you desperately need in order to stave off yet another humiliating defeat this November.

That same condescension has also blinded you to reality. Over half the voting public re-elected George W. Bush in 2004. Many of those people are neither crazy nor stupid. And the Democratic Party either needs to accept the fact, and tailor its politics accordingly, or lose.

Of course, you should feel free to carry on doing what you are doing if you like the ring of "President McCain." Indeed, isn't one definition of "crazy" doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result?

Regardless of whether you can vote in the next election, you imperil the cause in which you profess belief.

In fact, your response proves my point better than I ever could alone. Perhaps you should consider whether that is why I call you my friend? For you have made yourself the unwilling, but nevertheless effective, standard-bearer for my message.

Maybe those "propagandists" have a point, my friend. Why? Consider the reality of things:

2000 -- Democrats lose to a political neophyte.

2004 -- Democrats lose to the same, now fairly unpopular, political neophyte.

2008? It's September, the outgoing GOP president is now deeply unpopular, the Democratic candidate has a silver tongue, and...the race is a dead heat.

Maybe it's time to admit that your political enemies actually appeal to large numbers of people and adjust your strategy accordingly. Or you can do what you've always done, and get the same result you always got. Your choice.

By the way, it's already been pointed out to Your Ignorance that most Americans prefer 'liberal' positions but that many vote Republican out of fear, ignorance, and prejudice, cultivated and exploited by Republicans.

Godot, you are my favorite poster here -- a shining example of why condescension doesn't win swing votes.

If "most Americans" prefer liberal positions as you claim, then Democrats should have no problem overcoming all that fear and ignorance and get them to vote their hearts' desire. But reality intervenes again -- "most Americans" didn't vote Democrat in 2004, in part due to condescending rhetoric like yours. And then, instead of reevaluating its positions, the party has looked for any scapegoat it can find -- the ignorance of the common people it claims to support, a vast Republican conspiracy with the media, or some other external factor.

You fancy yourself a real wit, my friend, but in the end you're all hot air and no substance. Call people whatever names you want -- the reality is that the last 8 years have seen one Democratic defeat after another.

Good luck in November; you'll need it.

Cary has one good point that many folks here seem to have missed: many Republican voters aren't crazy. There are aspects of the Republican platform that make sense to them. They are people like you.

Even if you don't believe me, keep those feelings to yourself when you pitch your platform to swing voters. Writing all Republicans off as crazy, stupid, or mindlessly avaricious is just underestimating the power of your enemy and prevents you from recovering those votes. No swing voter wants to vote for someone that tells them that they are stupid, ignorant, or deluded.

So if you really dislike the Republican platform, and really want to fight it, acknowledge its power and then strike back! Don't just cover your ears and howl like the LW, or endlessly recycle tales of media conspiracies like Godot.

The Democrats of the 1960s played politics. They won. The Democrats of the 1990s played politics. They won. The Democrats of today complain, blame, and condescend. They lose. Go figure.

Fair enough. Your position won't give you the power to translate your wishes into reality. But as that issue is irrelevant to you, we're comparing apples to oranges, and don't have much else to say to each other.

My comments are directed to anyone who does care about changing the political order, like the LW.

Ayers and his interviewer conveniently forget the savagery that the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong practiced daily on the Vietnamese civilians, and that they violated Cambodian neutrality far before Kissinger ascended to power. And they conveniently forget that they themselves -- in a similar fashion to the NVA and VC -- targeted their own fellow citizens in cold blood, waiting in the shadows of civil society with nail-laden bombs to maim people at a dance.

That's quite different from crying havoc and letting slip the dogs of war on the battlefield. Norms of behavior in a theater of combat are far removed from those against your own people, and with good reason.

Thus, Ayer's feeble attempt at rehabilitation doesn't convince this liberal. The man should be locked away with the countless other common murders who didn't have the good fortune to cloak their viciousness in a shroud of political nonsense.

And the interviewer, an avowed Ayers sympathizer, should feel ashamed. There are those who protested the war peacefully, and there are those that turned to criminality. We should not allow the latter to share in the praise we accord the former.

I'd bet $100 that the vast majority of the people here don't even own an American car -- in fact, I'd bet that the author doesn't, either.

This ranks as one of the most fatuous articles I've ever seen on Salon. The South is to blame for Detroit's crappy cars? Christ almighty.