"who's not affiliated with the Vatican" That's all anybody needs to see. He's not affiliated with the Vatican, therefore he has no authority and is a nobody. -- fightthetheocracy!

The more important issue is why would the Washington Post, or any other nominally mainline (and once important) newspaper, bother to print anything someone like Donahue has to say?

It was painful to listen to him. I was never a fan of his on SNL, and I watch 30 Rock about once a month. He doesn't strike me as a particularly intelligent person. Either that or he's on the verge of a breakdown.

. . . on last night's interview. He wasn't doing "shtick" and be could barely string together a subject-verb agreement sentence. Again, he sounded like someone pretty close to going over the edge when he was talking about his family and growing up in Brooklyn.

Why would you assume Tracy Morgan isn't intelligent? Have you ever seen him when he ISNT doing is schtick? Or spoken to him?

-- stackey-dackey

A significant portion of this increase is first time home buyers trying to beat the tax rebate deadline.

. . . but WaMu was not actually bust when the FDIC stepped in.

Wamu's retail banking was solid vs their home loan operation. Too bad the loan business brought down the company, they had really good products and service was pretty good overall on their retail side. -- ishobo

Like Nordstrom, Microsoft, Boeing or Weyerhaeuser, everyone who has lived here for most of their lives knows at least one person who worked for WaMu. My main connection was in the commercial lending division (still there now with Chase). It, unlike the residential division, continued to lend using established and prudent guidelines, and it was still making money when the government stepped in.

How Killinger has avoid civil prosecution for fiduciary negligence is a mystery. By all rights, along with the heads of AIG, Lehman and Bear Sterns, he should be in jail.

It's not only supporting the system that takes money out of your pocket--they actually directly cost you more and pay you less than credit unions do. -- What the???

I haven't paid any banking fees in at least a decade. What are you being charged for?

I agree that credit unions are the way to go (along with re-nationalizing all utilities). But banks, even smaller local ones, typically only ding you when you've overdrawn or otherwise abused your account.

. . . Fresh Air interview last week about health care in the U.S. The public option is all well and good (though I want single payer), but until costs are reined in, the public option only helps those people who otherwise can't get or afford health care. The rest of us will continue to pay higher and higher premiums until we're all qualify for the public option.

The insurance industry is, according to the woman I heard interviewed, the 35th most profitable business in American. The hospital "business" is the 34th most profitable. I believe the time for private hospitals being treated as quasi-public enterprises is long past.

And just as no lawyer or investment banker "needs" to make $500K or more a year, even the proverbial brain surgeon doesn't "need" that kind of income. Yes, malpractice insurance is part of this equation, but doctors tend to be just like policemen, they'll never turn-in the bad apples. So, all those folk with the knee-jerk reaction to blame it all on trial lawyers, you need to stop and think about the larger issue.

. . . that I don't think too many members of Congress (probably none) can't afford to pay for their own health care. I believe the situation for their junior staff members might be different.

The only way a "Public" option is acceptable IS IF CONGRESS ADOPTS IT FOR ITSELF FIRST. ANYTHING ELSE IS BULLSHIT -- gedicht

I can't entirely agree with you on that one. The proverbial investment banker doesn't have $150,000 in student loans and didn't spend 4 years in undergrad, 4 years in med school, and another 5-7 years in residency. . . .-- fecklesswench

No. But bankers and lawyers can often have $40K-80K in loans depending on where they went to school.

However, the large loan debt that doctors end up with is part and parcel of the dysfunctional health care system we have. It's like a fucking guild. It doesn't necessarily cost that much more to educate a doctor than it does a PhD in molecular biology (and the latter is probably "smarter" too!).

The high price tag for the education functions as gate keeping. Very few people who scraped by as undergraduate chose to add to that debt with medical school. This is in part why minorities are under represented in the field.

The abuse that goes along with residency is part of this same fucked-up system. Just what every ER needs - a sleep deprived resident handling the aftermath of a gang shooting or a multi-car accident at 2AM.

Hoh wasn't stationed in Afghanistan in 2002.

Hoh says nothing different than many -- not so prominently featured -- were saying back in 2002. Something's fishy here.

BTW, there were many resignations (and voluntary and involuntary "retirements") in protest during the Bush years. -- Milton Wiltmellow

Yes, and those people, including a former general, stated unequivocally that both Iraq and Afghanistan were mistakes.

While commanders hate to lose, they hate just as much being given an ambiguous and pointless task. Of course McCrystal wants not just 40,000 more troops, he probably would like a 100,000 more because he know that short of having that many people in the field they're just perpetuating the "whack-a-mole" that strung out Iraq for at least two year longer than was necessary because idiot Rumsfeld decided to invade and occupy and enormous nation with on the cheap.

But I'd bet my last dollar that McCrystal would just as soon not be there as have to be there for another 3-5 years, even with an additional 100,000 or 200,000 troops.

. . . is she?