I won't insult you for providing readers here with essentially nothing in the way of solutions. What I will ask, however, is why have you spent so much time and energy insulting others who also seek methods to break this damnable gridlock which threatens to smother us all?

If I can speak plainly (and I will), no one here (minus the usual suspects) is an enemy--all of us are seeking the same thing.

There. Enough pontificating from T3.

And if an outbreak of Rebellion/Revolution from the Right does occur, what are the rest of us going to do? Condemn it, of course. Right? Join the Northern Command forces to put it down? No! Certainly not! Listen to the inchoate rhetoric and calls to arms from the rebels, hear their cry, and try to understand? Maybe. Join them? Never. Just don't be surprised if it happens. Be grateful if it doesn't.

It's late so I'm just going to say if that outbreak occurs on the Right, well, fuck 'em and let 'em go. I'm not interested in debating with the likes of Limbaugh and Hannity. If Palin and gang want to secede, fine. I won't try to "understand" them, I won't "join them," and although I'd be surprised if it happened (since they don't want to lose life's comforts either--a form of rationality even among the irrational), I sure as hell won't be "grateful if it doesn't."

Any other response is pure dickishness (Pedinska, I hope you noticed my effort with this last).

Who said anything about secession?

I may have mentioned it in passing.

Christ, what are you saying? Do we have to face these people in hand-to-hand combat? I don't think so. Loudmouths who listen to fellow loudmouths Limbaugh and Hannity, I'm certain, talk big but when push comes to shove, they'll dick out (Pedinska?).

And I think I've exhausted my cliche ration for the evening.

Have him try 'bearded clam' next time.

I just noticed this and wanted to say kudos! there's nothing like quality seafood! Of course, I have to take Benadryl after I partake but it's worth it (a matter of too much iodine or something).

The roads which will be super-fine for 3 miles will suddenly become the road to Minas Tirith for another 5 miles. Even Shadowfax cannot cross it easily.

Nice.

The Hummer represents many things, I suppose: genitalia (a more expensive version of Extenz), aggressiveness, a middle digit thrust up and out to the world at large. Ultimately, I imagine it's merely the adolescent's response to the adult conversations around him (the environment, the issue of petro-dollars and whether that money funds terrorism, responsible planetary stewardship, etc.). If I've offended any Hummer owners, my apologies as that's not my intent. Or maybe it is.

a new position, as Think Progress notes: Bernstein "will fill the new position of Chief Economist and Economic Policy Advisor to the Vice President."

I'm not at all certain what policy value his new job actually has. Were he to have a genuine voice in the administration, I can only foresee conflict with the "pragmatism" of Summers, et.al.

And, oddly, TP cites a Huffington Post article Bernstein wrote last May where he stated Regarding the variables that matter most to working families, the neocon experiment was a particularly dramatic failure.

I don't believe I've ever heard the term neocon used in an economic context. I must've missed something somewhere along the line.

I'm not much in to manifestos. I had hopes Glenn would give it a shot, being as that he is a dynamite polemicist and is becoming more radicalized by the day. But still there is the resistance to going that far, potentially triggering something beyond the standard fare: phoning, faxing, voting, giving money to candidates and causes. Anything more than that is potentially dangerous.

Utter horseshit. No kidding you're not into manifestos. You're apparently "in to" blathering on. And "I had hopes Glenn would give it a shot." Get off your ass and do it yourself. And "potentially dangerous"--huh, this is rather like a schoolmarm reprimanding her revolutionary students for not spilling their blood fast--or copiously--enough.

When the Bushevik Regime was new and weak and fragile, THAT's when fighting back might have made a huge difference at relatively slight cost. Now? They've had years to consolidate their objectives -- with the active assistance, don't forget, of the entire political class -- and it's really too late to do anything about it easily or through regular channels.

And that's pretty goddamn convenient--there was a time when but, alas, no longer.

I don't even know why I'm responding to this balderdash except that armchair revolutionaries with screen names like Che really irritate me.

These are politicians. They all benefit from skepticism and pressure, not blind, pom-pom-waving support. They deserve support when they do good things, opposition when they don't, and pressure and scrutiny at all times.

Too right. If these people expect acquiesence from an interested public, they ought to think again. Feinstein's lame effort at damage control, as you rightly note, undercuts her other more specific statements, where she says she is willing to go beyond the Army Field Manual and even consider "special measures" in the event of an "imminent terrorist threat," mean that this pledge for a "single standard" doesn't remotely undermine Shane and Mazzetti's characterization that she "seemed reluctant in recent interviews to commit the new administration to following the Army Field Manual in all cases."

Isn't this where we're at right now? How is this different from the justifications used by Bush et.al. these past several years?

bullmurph: we know, and to a large degree, expect, incompetence from the folks who've been running the shop (into the ground) these past eight years, but much of this mendacity has been ignored--and even abetted by the Dems.

I would dispute the incompetence part. I think it's worse than that. Incompetence lets them off too easy. They're collaborators.