Your analysis of Paglia is on the mark except your conclusion is wrong. You find her to be a nuisance because she does not toe the party line 24/7 as good liberal foot soldier in the media is expected to do. Paglia is liberal but I think she chafes at the shallowness of liberal-talk, e.g. Salon suffers from too much of the same thing: it's a big echo chamber for all things left of Obama. All the pieces sound the same and all the posts sound the same. All the same issues are recycled week in and week out and are then reproduced all over again on MSNBC by our esteemed editor-in-chief. No variations are allowed on any major Dem talking points and no serious debate on anything of substance. If something comes up on the Right that even purports to challenge the orthodoxy of the Obama nation, the messenger is gang-raped and the message is twisted, ridiculed and burned in effigy.

Hey Kamiya:

The big deal in that part of the world is Pakistan and nothing else really matters. Nobody cares if freakin' palestinians ever get a state because it is all part of a greater Israel, so stop the charade already. Stop raising expectations only to then disappoint. Once again, it really doesn't matter because a so-called separate Palestinian state is not viable, only symbolic.

Obama is substantially more concerned about Pakistan than Palestine. He assumes Israel will deal with the Palestinians as they see fit? He's a pragmatist, remember.

Just when the blue-staters think that they have a 50 year run in front of them, Obama screws up and looks like a pussy in the process.

If Obama cannot twist arms (off) in the case of AIG bonuses, he has a real credibility problem. Take note...Obama has no stomach for this job. The Repubs could very easily make life miserable for Obama on this issue alone and recover very nicely in 2010. Obama needs to make an example out of these AIG guys and do it right now. He needs to stop hiding behind the legal niceties and break some nuts in public. Then the next time, people will think twice before they bite the hand that saved their collective asses.

Most executive bonuses paid in the economy have a high subjective content to them. There are some targets that have to be met but there is also the MBO piece where most executive score 100%. They just have to show up for work and not look retarded. In the case of AIG where losses were horrendous and the company was insolvent, I have to believe that all the bonuses were based on subjective criteria. What other criteria is there? What I have heard is that these are "retention" bonuses to keep people in-place. There could be a valid reason for keeping people in-place but I don't think the cleanup is done by a long-shot, so why are these bonuses being paid now? Something is not right and the govt has the right to be nasty about it. Within 3 months of receiving their "key-man" bonuses, half these guys will have moved on.

Geithner has maybe one more fiasco left before he gets the boot. Obama has had to cover for this guy on several occasions and even Obama has his limits. I don't really care what the excuses are this time but he is clearly not "senior enough". Geithner was out-maneuvered by the AIG execs and made to look like an idiot. I would never have allowed those bonuses to be paid under any circumstances and piss all over the "contract" if need be. The UAW and every other union in this country makes concessions every day while the AIG execs don't have to?

Geithner probably forgot all about the bonuses until Obama reminded him that thinking politically is as important as the money supply.

Let's roll the clock back to 1976 when we had wage and price controls on the economy designed to control inflation. Remember "WIN" buttons which was "whip inflation now" and this was a Jerry Ford invention. Pricing in the economy was controlled by the federal government. The federal gov't was involved in every decision, no matter how minor, such as what color uniforms an airline flight crew was allowed to wear prior to 1975. The overall experience in the 70's was so poor with this type of regulation that everyone breathed a sigh of relief when the airlines and the telephone companies were deregulated in the late 70's and early 80's. It was all very bipartisan because it was the right thing to do. Companies like FedEx were a direct result of airline deregulation.

Dear Joan,

Obama is trying to "nicely" shake some sense into the Europeans but they don't seem to get it. He wants your beloved Europe to see that they are setting themselves up to take the big hit once the Taliban and their al-Qaida allies get settled-in in northeastern Pakistan long enough to begin plotting the next really big hit against "surprise" a really big European capital in a really "important" European country. Then "surprise" a really big wedge will be driven between the US and our so-called European allies. The Europeans will blame the US for all their security problems despite the fact that we have had their backs for the past 60+ years.

The Europeans will then grovel at the feet of al-Qaida and beg forgiveness for all their transgressions against the Muslim world going back to the Crusades and promise never to listen to those Americans again who are clearly the cause of all their misery. They will then plead with al-Qaida to not punish them any more and, by all means, direct their anger at the US.

Tell me where I am wrong.

By the paucity and poor taste of your response, I suspect that I hit a raw nerve. BTW, do you ever read anything other than the comic strips? You should try to get out more often.