OK, YouTube users may skew liberal, but anybody can upload to it and anybody could have submitted questions, and the candidates didn't control which ones CNN picked. I missed some of the debate but saw that got at least one question (the one on gun rights, and maybe how a woman could talk to Muslim governments) that sounded like it came from the right. If Republicans can't handle questions that come from likely opponents, what are they going to do in the general election? Maybe the questions can be dodged, but they can't avoid hearing them indefinitely. How can you hope to win by trying to restrict yourself to conservatives? It's like Republicans want to take Bush's tactic of restricting access to his campaign rallies, and extend it to debates. If that's true, pack it in now guys.

Let me suggest a truce on the impeachment question. This admittedly delays rather than resolves the issue, but, speaking as an impeachment advocate, I recognize that impeachment requires hearings to establish the details of the charges. Congress is holding those hearings already. We don't know which investigation will find the proverbial Oval Office tapes. On both sides, let's make sure the Democrats understand we support their efforts to investigate. What I ask from the anti-impeachment side is a promise that impeachment is on the table if they see enough evidence. On the pro-impeachment side, I would stop demanding impeachment NOW if I can understand that current investigations will lead to impeachment if sufficient evidence is found. Just get Pelosi and judiciary committee chair Conyers to say impeachment is possible, depending on what investigations turn up.

Give Leahy credit for learning from a mistake. I think the gulf between congressional Democrats and the grassroots comes from the much greater rapidity with which the grassroots figured out what current Republicans are about. Leahy and his colleagues are still thinking collegiately, that the Republican are at core interested in finding the truth and getting things done in the best interest of the country. They are not. Republican leadership, including both executive and legislative, are authoritarians interested in seizing power. Only those of that mindset will even get nominated for the Supreme Court or, it seems, any appointed position. That's why Roberts is so far right, why the base saw this coming and yelled, and why we keep thinking congressional Democrats have no backbone. Forget the analogy of taking a knife to a gunfight: too many Democratic leaders are still expecting a debate instead of a fight. Leahy I think has figured this out.

I can't speak for national Democrats, but I can certainly explain why Minnesota Democrats show no reticence about connecting the bridge collapse, the warnings about deteriorating bridges, and the Republicans' successful effort to thwart increased infrastructure spending for the sake of taxophobic politics. This paragraph from Saturday's Minneapolis StarTribune nicely explains the Republican attitude that drew accusing fingers so quickly and angrily: "Pawlenty's opposition to a gasoline tax increase was long-standing and adamant. In 2005 he also vetoed a gas tax increase, asking of DFLers, "How dumb can they be?" Earlier this year he said DFLers "have simply been obsessed" with a gas tax." http://www.startribune.com/587/story/1343631.html

I explain why Minnesota Democrats were angry about Pawlenty's attitude more in depth here: http://www.ravensblog.net/#why-ready-to-blame

I'd be interested in finding out why some stories galvanize the public, and others don't. I doubt anyone outside news junkies even know about this FISA revision. I can't tell any revelations of warrantless wiretapping, or violations of civil liberties at all, have grabbed public attention. So what will it take, or what was it about the stories that did grab the public? A great example is the collapse of the bridge. There have been other infrastructure collapses recently, some I hadn't heard of until the Minneapolis bridge brought attention to the story. Why weren't any of those enough to make this an issue? Infrastructure has been a huge party-line fight in the Minnesota legislature, but I don't know that most people heard anything other than the gas tax might go up. It was reported on: the StarTribune has done great work digging up warnings the state got, the governor calling Democrats "dumb" and "obsessed" over this issue, and they pulled much of it from their archives, so I can't say it wasn't reported.

I'm sure any of us can think of other examples, like why did the Walter Reed scandal have such effect that high ranking heads rolled for the first time in a Bush scandal, but so many other scandals, even those regarding the treatment of soldiers and veterans, went nowhere.

Assuming the math is right that came up with driving being more carbon-friendly than walking, a huge leap as I think about it but accepting to for the moment, it's still easy to screw up the calculation. What if we get something other than beef? Or the beef is locally produced? How much will driving instead of waling contribute to the obesity epidemic, and how much more gasoline is burned as cars haul heavier people?

And of course the big one: with, as I understand, half our greenhouse gases coming from coal power plants, what difference will it make for us to walk if we don't do something about how our electricity is generated? While he's calculating his calories, he's nibbling around the edges.