To be fair to Anderson Cooper, it seemed he let the questioners ask their questions and only followed up where there was dodging. His debates have been pretty good. It was his CNN, Wolf Blitzer, who was dreadful, along with Fox wannabes Campbell Brown and John Roberts. Almost as bad is Tim Russert. Why he's so respected inside the beltway I can't guess. I haven't heard the debate yet (web archives are a wonderful thing) but I'm expecting much more than from CNN or MSNBC, though to be fair again, this time to MSNBC, the one debate moderated by Keith Olbermann, at the AFL-CIO convention, was also good. Maybe I've seen too many of these things.

Joan, I mention it to you since you're an editor. The Follman article doesn't mention who he was interviewing. I couldn't tell if it was an interview or he wrote his article in a Q&A format. I didn't know until I saw your blog.

... in the sense that listening to it will let the listener understand the conservative view of religion. Within the rhetoric about how nice freedom is, Romney did give the conservative view that secularism isn't separate from religion, but is a religion, and when the government is neutral towards religion, it promotes secularism, which means promoting a religion, therefore neutrality is impossible. We're free to be any religion we want, but we're not free to have no religion, and keeping the religion of the majority out of the public sphere, he mentioned the government putting up nativity scenes in parks, is itself the promotion of the religion of secularism.

I'm not saying it's logical or constitutional. I'm just saying that's the conservative point of view, and Romney actually did pretty well at articulating it.

Why was Kucinich excluded?

I hope one of these reporters or pundits doing horserace coverage will have the decency to forget Hillary and Obama for amoment, and explain why a candidate who is so worthy doesn't get anywhere.

Glenn, why do you say about Kucinich "if one wants to count him"? If he's running for president and has the right position, then count him. That seems like a no-brainer to me.

Clearly our government has been making mistakes in picking who to back as leaders of other governments, but we need to ask just what the mistake was. Was the mistake picking the wrong people, or was the mistake in trying to pick other people's leaders at all? From Iraq and Pakistan right back to appointing favored Indians as chiefs, has this ever worked? Has a US picked leader ever had legitimacy? Maybe the best thing we can do is let Pakistan sort out its own government, and work with whoever ends up in charge. Efforts to prevent a hostile government coming to power just might bring about exactly that result, like has happened many times before.

Why is MSNBC so hot on Chris Matthews? When they pair him with Keith Olbermann, isn't the difference as clear to them as it is to viewers? I tuned in a few times tonight hoping for Olbermann, but pretty much all the air time went to the usual useless prats like Matthews, Mitchell, and Russert.

I hoped Dodd would do better. He deserves it for consistently being among the few who show backbone in the fights with Bush and the Republicans. It seems odd he never moved in the polls when he not only did the right thing, but was willing to stand alone doing it. If Obama is the candidate, Dodd would be a godo choice for VP. He has the experience, gravitas, and respect among his peers Obama is accused of lacking. I'm not so sure the charge is fair, but Dodd's presence on the ticket would counter it, and appeal to the party base that's most concerned about showing backbone and defending the Constitution.

Besides reading thse accounts of Democratic caucuses, I watched C-SPAN's coverage of a Democratic and Republican caucus, and I was struck by the differences between the two. The Democrats debated, traded, and elected the individuals who would be delegates to the state convention, while Republicans heard pitches for some campaigns and then voted, getting nothing to say about who would be delegates at the next level. The Democrats elected local party officers, while the Republicans heard the local chair name THE candidate for a post, announce election by acclimation if thre was no objection, and hearing none in a couple seconds, declared the election over. The Democrats spent a lot of time on their resolutions, while the Republicans just left. Other people higher up get to pick resolutions I guess. I didn't see how the Democrats started their caucus, but the Republicans started with an explicitly Christian prayer. No non-Christians need apply. Is there still a difference between conservative churches and the Republican Party?

I think the least covered story of the season is that the NFC has achieved parity with the NFC. The interconference record was a tie. It would be more obvious if the Patriots were taken out, since they give the impression the AFC is still stronger, but of course they can't be taken out. Personally, the top two teams get such a huge advantage, I'd like to see either the end of the wild cards so all the division winners play the same number of rounds, or add two wild cards and make everyone play the first round. Home field advantage is enough without that ridiculous bye on top of it.