Before reading your article I contacted the chancellor & the dean of the law school at Berkeley to ask why they are employing a terrorist. I expect to hear from them as my husband & I have been making substantial contributions to Berkeley. Thank you for writing this important article, but I couldn't read it all because the subject matter makes me so sick.

I have read (but not heard or seen) Clinton's response to Obama's remark, and on the printed page, it looks deranged. I'm a poor person myself & I live in a smallish town in Florida, but I sure didn't see any elitism in Obama's remarks -- I thought he got us. I think he was trying to explain poor people to rich people, just the way he tried to explain black people to white people & vice versa. He has the facility to do that because he actually knows (rather than 'uses') all kinds of people. I think the person who will be most hurt by remarks on this subject is Sen. Clinton because she seems (or pretends) to have no idea about the pain her brand of insider political deal-making has caused us average Americans.

It has been clear since before they fired Donahue that MSNBC execs. were in the tank for Republicans. Their keeping Pat Buchanan -- an unrepentant racist -- on the air almost 24/7 is another example. I do think Olbermann is a leftie on some issues, & it has been a pleasure to finally hear someone who sees some things as I do even if he is a sanctimonious blowhard.

To suggest that Britt Hume -- or Charlie Gibson -- is not a conservative ideologue is ridiculous, & to suppose that Roger Ailes (or whoever runs ABC News now) would cower at a complaint from the Democratic establishment is laughable.

I have 4 swell TVs in my house, & the ONLY news-related TV I watch is the first 20 minutes of Olbermann, & Jon Stewart & Stephen Colbert. I'll probably watch Rachel Maddow till the suits muzzle her or make her have a lot of right-wing guests.

I get 95% of my news from newspapers & the Internet. I recommend it.

Mike Madden's analysis is probably the best on the web. For a round-up of other opinions on the debate & other news, go to RealityChex.com using the link.

This article is featured as a "Must Read" in today's RealityChex.com at http://www.realitychex.com along with many more news stories & opinion pieces related to the presidential race.

This is a good series of posts on the Troopergate report. Of course Palin has made it worse today, even claiming that calling Wooten a "rogue" was "not negative" & repeating her assertion that she came out smelling like a rose in the report. For more on Troopergate & many other matters concerning the presidential race, go to RealityChex.com at http://www.realitychex.com

Joan, thanks for calling McCain out on snickering about "the health of the mother." It took me, & probably a lot of women of a certain age, back to the bad ol' days when most men thought they shoud decide what was best for women. In a McCain presidency, we could go right back there. Today's young women, whose "health" McCain thinks is such a joke, have no idea. Your column, & other smart takes on the debate are featured on RealityChex.com at http://www.realitychex.com

Mr. Burly shouldn't be too proud of a city that supports Jim Inhofe. I used to live in Tulsa, & the kind of Republican I met there is not the Christie Whitman kind of rational, smart person. They were, sadly, the kind of lunkhead that moved McCain to pick the kind of lunkhead he did as his running mate. It was a "society" in which business deals were made at church, not in boardrooms or over dinner. If you want to know why "Coastal liberals" prefer the Coasts, spend a little time in Tulsa. It's a shame, or it was, & I do hope it's changing.

This is the most fascinating read (& listen) on the Internet. What a find! Congratulations to Tom Brune. His piece, by the way, is featured on RealityChex.com at http://www.realitychex.com along with other political news & analysis.

While there is much for the left (which would include me) to criticize in many of Obama's nominees, I cannot understand, and Glenn has not adequately explained, why he would give Obama a pass on Eric Holder.

Holder might be fine for some other position in an Administration full of self-righteous recycled influence-peddlers. But as Glenn himself suggests, the Attorney General is the one person who must be, like Caesar's wife, above reproach. He/she is supposed to represent the people (even Holder half says that), not kowtow to the President's whims or to insider influence-trading. As Glenn fully acknowledges, Holder has demonstrated in the Rich pardon (and elsewhere, I might add) that he is constitutionally incapable of independence, an independence that would be ever more difficult when answering to a President he admires.

It's about time we had an attorney general who is more like Elliot Richardson and less like Alberto Gonzales. In Holder, we will get another Gonzo. I think Obama's banking on that, to the detriment of the citizens he serves. Shame on Obama, and shame on the left for taking it lying down.

The Constant Weader at www.RealityChex.com