Joan, you already know that the voters McCain means to woo with her inclusion don't give a damn about what the Paul Krugmans of the world think.

Besides that contingent, many more who might have misgivings about her would nevertheless still be dismayed if he bumped her from the ticket because the GOP has invested so energy in painting their opposition as weak "flip-floppers", and getting rid of her would be a signal of the same kind of behavior.

(And to be fair, considering how readily Obama discarded his pastor and later repudiateded Wesley Clark, they may have a point.)

We don't know why?

WE DON'T KNOW WHY?

I don't want to curse, or call you names, or say anything unkind Mr Shapiro, but I will say this-- one of the things that anger voters is the condescension with which so many members of today's media and political 'elite' treat them. Why you forgot to say "tut-tut" and assure us that our superiors know what's best for us is beyond me. Perhaps the pressure of a deadline.

from another planet asked you to explain why analyzing John McCain's nostrils was acceptable but determining Obama was a radical "Islamofascist" because of his middle name was out of bounds, how would you explain it to him?

Let me hazard a guess: because they're ridiculous, whereas we're not. And you have it on good authority from a lady who says she went to Brandeis but won't tell you her name. So then you've surrendered the gravity necessary to denounce the Obama is a no-good Arab meme, but held on to a certain level of tragic hipness. Great.

If you want to make fun of the people who read Salon, wouldn't it be better to have a contest for best stereotypically-bad Salon article, with only non-professional writers eligible to enter?

your guy BHL writes:

Why Obama should be chosen, in my opinion: No. 1, because it would mean really the end -- and the complete victory of the battle begun in the '60s. No. 2, because it will mean the end of a new American evil, which is the dividing, the Balkanization of American society...

BHL: "I am, how you say, making penetrating insights about your country, no?"

Well, no, actually.

1. The idea that an Obama victory would represent "the complete victory of the battle begun in the 60s" is simply laughable, and if an American philosophy prof from Nebraska or Iowa said it you would laugh at him and dismiss him as a bumpkin. Obama is NOT a leftist, and his votes regarding FISA and the billionaire bailout bill are just starters in the case against such an absurd proposition. BHL's view is no less ridiculous than the GOP meme that Obama is the "most liberal member of the Senate."

2.The idea that Obama's election would suddenly and magically wash racism out of America's veins is laughable. BHL has a tin ear, but apparently because it's a French one he gets a publisher for his addle-pated notions.

3. The Islamic world won't turn away from America and the West simply if McCain is elected. They will continue to sour on the US if we continue our airstrikes against civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Somalia-- something that Obama has essentially vouched for when he said he means to expand the war in Afghanistan-- making him no different from McCain in the eyes of the Islamic world, which isn't nearly so sentimental as BHL.

If you insist on arbitrarily dividing up US history according to Lind's republics, demarcated at Lincoln, then FDR then approximately at the present, it might be more useful to take note of the less salutary aspects of what happened when Lincoln and FDR consolidated and strengthened presidential power. Had either man lived longer they may have tried to correct the imbalance of power that they took from the other branches. Maybe, each being as human as the next man, they would not have-- we'll never know.

At any rate, starting the present era in December of 2000 makes more sense, as we are now living in dawn of the Bush v. Gore/Patriot Act/War-on-Terror "republic", and I for one am skeptical that Obama will voluntarily rein in the dangerously expanded executive powers Bush II will hand over to him.

Back in his 1st term Ronald Reagan started the modern assault on US trade unions when he fired the air traffic controllers, and conservatives of all stripes for the past 25 plus years have been bad-mouthing union labor as greedy, lazy and corrupt.

I say "of all stripes" because I look at these letters with their poisonous rhetoric about letting the big three go under and how terrible American cars supposedly are, and how overpaid and undeserving the UAW workers are, and I think to myself that many contemporary liberals have semi-consciously bought in to the labor-hating rhetoric too.

I wonder how many of the people writing about how terrible American cars are have even owned one. I also wonder if many people simply feel a cultural aversion to American cars, and mainly worry what their chic friends would think if they bought an American car.

For my part I don't pretend to know of any comprehensive, objective measure of domestic vs. import auto quality. I just know of my own experiences with 2 Hondas(1 good, 1 bad) and 3 American cars(2 good, 1 bad), and I recognize that in the abstract they constitute too small a statistical sample.