This shooting is not a racial issue, but politically correct liberals will soon make it one. First we'll get the usual denouncement of white racism, followed by a call for more diversity on college campuses and an increase in the number of H1B visas. Meanwhile, the real issue in this tragedy - which is of course the availability and danger of high capacity semi-automatic weapons - will remain largely untouched; i.e., until Joe Conason or some other airhead writes an article on how it's politically impossible for Democrats to renew the assault weapons ban.

Members of the liberal establishment - in this case MSNBC, ABC, and the DNC - team up to exclude left-wing candidates from debates, and Glenn Greenwald thinks the issue here is *right-wing* corruption?

Conservatives use their political power to irrationally and sadistically inflict pain on people they dislike - liberals, the poor, blacks, gays, environmentalists, drug users, etc. Why then should they expect the victims of this hate to respond to the death of a conservative icon with tea and sympathy?

Clearly there is a difference between irrational hatred and justified hate. Unfortunately, conservatives - as well as many liberals it would seem - would have us believe that irrational hatred is justified and justified hate is irrational.

Let's face it, the current Democratic Congress is NEVER going to respond to Code Pink or any other group of left-wing activists. These people are all water carriers for the GOP, and there is no demonstration or march, no sit-in or stand-in that will move them in the least - not on the war, the environment, or anything else. Given this situation, it's clear nothing is going to change until we remove Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the rest of these Republicrats from office. Unfortunately, it's basically impossible to get rid of incumbents through the primary process, and so we will have to elect Republicans as an interim step, which will undoubtedly make things worse in the short-term. If, however, Code Pink and other left-wing groups are truly serious about effecting change, they should think long-term and start voting Democrats out of office. Until and unless they are willing to do that, they might as well pack their tiaras and puppets and go home, because no one is going pay attention to them otherwise. Of course voting for the people who started this war and who may well lead us into other wars is a desperate and risky action, but it's the only logical course of action at this point, which may well explain why Code Pink and the rest of the left have turned to pointless and bizarre activities.

What's the alternative, voting for greens who have no chance in hell of getting elected? We tried supporting Democrats, but that turned out to be political suicide for the left. The only thing that's left is to replace Democrats with Republicans and then try and replace those Republicans with more progressive Democrats. If the left weren't such a bunch of peanut-clutching monkeys, they would realize that in order to win, they have to start thinking more than one step ahead.

You talk of murderers, but what exactly have Democrats done to stop the killing in Iraq? What are they doing to prevent an attack on Iran? At least 96 Democrats support a naval blockade of Iran, which under international law is an act of war. Clearly the Democrats have just as much blood on their hands as Republicans, and for anyone to act like they are an alternative to the GOP is the worst sort of dishonesty. The real murderers in this country are those who prevent a political alternative by supporting the rotting corpse of the Democratic Party.

The search committee hasn't floated a single name that wasn't either a Republican or an ulta-conservative Democrat, which means that Obama's choice will almost certainly disappoint anyone to the left of Holy Joe.

The guy seems to think this is a business-as-usual election when clearly people are looking for some real change this time around. A repeat of the Gore 2000 campaign isn't going to cut it, but it looks like that's what we're going to get, unfortunately.

While there's little doubt that we need to remove some of these "blue dogs" from office, it's really phony progressives like Pelosi, the Kennedy clan, Dean, and Obama that are destroying the Democratic Party. Outside of three issues - taxes, abortion, and gay rights - these people aren't really any more progressive than a southern conservative. They're all hugely supportive of corporations, the Israeli government, globalization, etc. If progressives are really serious about change, these are the politicians who need to be targeted first. Whining about the few remaning "blue dogs" while supporting the "corpocrats" who control the party is just plain silly, and in fact, the article seems to be an attempt to divert our attention away from the real truth about the Democratic Party.

If conservatives want to run as Democrats, fine by me, I'll vote for a Republican over those people.

Case in point: the likely Democratic candidate in the current Senate race in Georgia is a black conservative who voted for Bush TWICE. As a progressive, I'm not going to support this person, and will vote for Saxby Chambliss instead. I don't care if this costs the Democratic Party the Senate, because a Senate loaded with conservative Democrats is not going to help the progressive movement anyway.

There are those who say the country is center-right, and that progressives will just have to learn to live with "blue dogs" and other moderate-conservative Democrats. Well, the GOP is the center-right party, and if there is no way around center-right candidates, then there is no reason for the Democratic Party to exist. If - as a progressive - I have no viable options other than center-right candidates, I'm going to vote Republican, and all the "blue dogs" and "corpocrats" can go fuck themselves.