"Eternal vigilance" is TWO watchwords, Broun. You deluded hatemongering fool.

This is why I say the GOP will be exactly the same animal in 2012, running Sarah Palin on a platform of attacks, division, hate and fear. It's also why they'll get buried in a Congressional landslide and only then realize they need to reinvent their party if it's ever to be relevant again.

Way to turn the corner, GOP. That kind of fresh, intelligent rhetoric will really get it done in 2010 and 2012. If by "get it done" you mean giving the Democrats another 10 Senate and 30 House seats and torpedoing your party for a generation.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go kill some kittens.

This is all good news (assuming, of course, that the Democrats can get their balls to drop and actually do what's right for the country as opposed to what's politically expedient), but I still hope for Chambliss' defeat. I can never forget his hideous ads targeting Max Cleland in 2002, which compared Cleland, who lost three limbs in Vietnam, to Osama bin Laden. Sadly, it worked. Saxby is a piece of garbage and I'd love to see him go down. Alas, it doesn't appear likely.

C'est la vie.

"Have an opinion on the Constitutional question" of appointment versus special election? Were you TRYING to be funny or was it accidental? Palin doesn't have an opinion on whether bacon or sausage is better with the Denny's Grand Slam; I sincerely doubt she's given a second's thought to whether or not she has the legal right to appoint herself senator.

Funny. Really. My sides hurt.

Brilliantly written. Sadly, the first LW is right: Bush will try to screw the country until the last possible second. He's truly a scumbag and a monster and deserves prison. But I suspect we'll have to settle for disgracing him in the media and in print. I can't wait for the flood of new books all riffing on the idea "the worst president in U.S. history."

That and undoing everything he's done and turning his legacy into one of war crimes trials for his lieutenants, legal reversals of his decisions and written histories documenting his incompetence will have to be satisfaction enough.

Tom, while you hold the door, I will graciously carry Gov. Palin's luggage to the Also-Ran Suite. I would pay to see her run against Obama in 2012.

The code names are designed to give the Secret Service quick shorthand when speaking about members of the first family over a communications channel. They are chosen so that they are clear and unambiguous over a wireless phone, say, or a radio headpiece. Same as the military's use of Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc.

Some of your best writing ever, Gary. Incisive, surgical, smart. Well done.

As for the GOP, they're not going to get the message by 2012. The base is too much in denial and they're going to run Palin against Obama, which will be a side splitter. After that 400 EV drubbing, the GOP might start to realize, "Hey, maybe gays, god, guns, slander and sucking off the rich aren't connecting with the voters after all." Then we might start to see a different party. Not before. By then, they're going to be buried for 50 years.

Sarah Palin is done on the national scene. That's not to say she won't try, but she's done as far as a 2012 nomination. Her brand is established, and it's not flattering. It's extremely difficult to change one's brand when it's firmly rooted in the popular psyche, and I doubt she has either the self-awareness nor the intellectual rigor to do so. Politics is all about branding, and Palin's brand is of a bitchy, bubble-headed, phony-folksy diva who didn't know Africa was a continent. True or not, those memes are what she's known for and known as, and it will be all but impossible for her to reinvent herself.

As for the GOP...Newt? Rudy G.? Man, when you're trotting out those pathetic old war horses as the next Great Right Hopes, you're in sad shape. At least Huckabee is charming and has a sense of humor.

...what will they do with this majority? Will they equivocate and fumble and squirm out from under their responsibility to reverse the monstrous course of Bush policies, like they did after 2006? Or will their collective testicles finally drop, allowing them to take decisive action (and screw "center-right" faux bipartisanship) on climate change, protecting habeas corpus, doing away with FISA immunity, re-regulating the financial markets, etc. etc.?

Inquiring and deeply skeptical, pissed off minds want to know. Your move, Democrats.

Click my signature to read a letter from the kind of Republican/Neocon who won't be going away any time soon.

Shame, shame on Obama for asking all Americans to serve their country and give something to the community. Doesn't he know that the way you serve is by paying taxes so you can bail out multimillionaire CEOs and by going shopping after major disasters?

What a socialist/communist/Marxist/leftist/Buddhist/Dadaist/accordionist/dermatologist/hypnotist/French twist.

Oh, now I know where the screaming racists at the McCain rallies went: they're holed up at your house working on their morality taunts.

WTF? Child molesters and adulterers are in the majority in California? Sorry, but from under what rock did you squirm, you insulting little toad? I've lived in California all my 43 years and we are no less moral and one hell of a lot more intelligent and forward thinking than filth-spewing reprobates like yourself. Sure, we were Neanderthal enough to pass Prop 8 and kick the shit out of gays yet again, but if the history of this country shows us anything, it's that eventually, rights and freedoms win out...Even in the face of blind, ignorant bigotry like yours.