What leads Buchanan, and seemingly every conservative pundit, to see conservatism in Obama's speeches is that ll good things are conservative, and therefore when Obama advocates something good, he has seen things their way. To answer Joan's question, they do see waste as a liberal value. Liberals are irresponsible so appeals for responsibility shows Obama is really conservative.

I think there must also be a sense, even if not a conscious thought, that if liberals are successful dealing with the crisis --- sorry, make that crises -- it will be really tough to advocate returning to conservative policies and politicians. Therefore, there's a need to set up the idea that Obama is really a conservative, therefore conservatism didn't fail, but succeeded, albeit with a Democratic face.

And no, I don't pretend I might not do likewise if liberalism had brought the country to such a state, and a conservative government seemed to have a handle on things. I would be tempted too to say things like "he just spoke out against waste, so really he's a liberal like us".

Of course, economic collapses have this odd tendency to coincide with periods of conservative dominance. Pure coincidence I'm sure.

I notice that Gallup got these numbers by interviewing anybody, not just registered voters or likely voters. That suggests if participation by eligible voters could be increased, it would be to the Democrats' advantage. Notice that the states surprising us tend to have low voter turnout.

So why is turnout low? Several reasons. Early voter registration deadlines. No registration at the polls. Voter suppression efforts like caging and photo ID requirements. Also notice how these states are regarded as safely Republican at the presidential level, and bear in mind that many voters vote only for president. When you know how your state is going to vote, why turn out? Replacing the electoral college with a direct popular vote might be the best thing to increase turnout.

Mathews must be a Democrat. Why else would he let a fool like Armey be the Republican? He should find a reasonable, non-bigoted Republican like... never mind.

I've heard Limbaugh's sentiment expressed elsewhere. It seems to be a talking point of the talk-radio right. They keep claiming dissent is no longer being accepted, and they're being told to get in line with Obama's orders, or something to that effect. They never say who is telling them that. It's not the talk-radio left, I listen enough to be sure of that. They haven't been told to get in line on liberal blogs that I've seen, MSNBC primetime, so as far as I can tell it's the same paranoid imaginations that see secret superhighways through the middle of the country and Franken stealing an election by brainwashing all those Republican judges.

Franken's accountant paid his state income taxes to the states where he lived instead of each individual state where he earned income. Since Franken lived in New York and Minnesota, higher tax states, he actually overpaid.

Please let the Republicans do their own spinning.

It's not just you, a lot of people have a problem with this. Plainly put, families and governments are different creatures. They just are rarely analogous, and your analogy here doesn't fit. Families can save their surpluses. Governments that try that come under intense pressure to give rebates or tax cuts, but no one tells families to give part of their income back to their employer. Likewise, governments can raise taxes when they need money. In fact, that's the only place governments get money. Families don't have the option of raising incomes generally, but if they do have that option, would they refuse it, let alone cut their incomes in tough times because this will somehow give them an incentive to produce more?

Conservatives readily resort to the family/government analogy. It's as automatic as, well, claiming millions of Americans don't pay taxes (at least dennisl59 referred specifically to federal income taxes --- otherwise I never hear conservatives admit that). It's false, and we can't leave the impression it's a legitimate argument.

Even while working on the stimulus and the economic crises, the debate needs to include references to structural problems. That's how the debate gets framed, so it's always about HOW to deal with structural issues instead of WHETHER. We must encourage Obama and congress to talk about structural issues, otherwise the media won't pick it up.

Obama dodged a bullet. With all his industry connections, Daschle was going to be a leaky faucet of conflicts of interest. Those of us interested in universal health care got lucky too, because instead of a HHS secretary with his hand in the pocket of the insurance industry, there's a chance to get someone interested in actual reform. I hope Obama picks a single-payer advocate like John Conyers, who like Daschle knows how Congress works.

As far as the embarrassment of a nomination going down, it happens to all presidents. Anyone remember Linda Chavez, Kimba Wood, or John Tower? If you do, I bet you needed reminding. most people haven't heard of Daschle, and more will be unable to remember his name next month.

Forget debating "clean coal" for a moment. Peabody clearly lied in a financial statement. That's not just unethical, it's illegal. Executives have to sign off on the accuracy of their financial statements under penalty of imprisonment. The Enron crooks went to prison for lying in their financial statements. This is much smaller than Enron obviously, but didn't Peabody just commit a felony?