I second Salonite. But it's perhaps time to give up on the bait and hate crowd - their anti-intellectualism won't permit them to budge an inch in their thinking.

I like this part: "Conservapedia has easy-to-use indexes to facilitate review of topics." Yes, and the sentences will be short and words will all have one syllable. They need to make reading as easy as possible for those folk. Poor things.

I just never knew he understood so much. Give him credit - if he only understands half of what he says he understands, he's quite the understander.

At the turn of the last century when americans became disgusted by sweat-shop factories, they didn't blame the immigrants for them (thought it was immigrants who worked in them), they blamed the factory owners and passed laws protecting workers. Why, now, do so many people essentially blame immigrants for the horrible conditions under which they work? Mandate better pay and working conditions, and legal US residents and citizens will take those jobs, and there will be less incentive for people to immigrate illegally. If an employer has to pay the same to a legal or illegal worker, they will choose the legal.

Then I'll be brave and say it's not immoral, too." Hiding behind the shield of Warner in her second comment was more reprehensible to me than anything else. Why did she have to do that? Chickenshit.

The thing that jumped out at me in this story is the bit were Third Reporter jumps in to help McCain answer the question, help him critique the use of condoms to spread aids. WTF????? That's the whole problem with pool reporters in a nutshell. They WANT McCain to look great - they WANT him to make it to the end so they can have the story at the finish line. How often does this happens? How often do reports jump in to answer other reporters' questions when the candidate is struggling? Does it only happen with McCain cuz he's such a reporter darling?

Janet Reno had her own learning curve issues, but what stood out for me in those 1993 excerpts was the extent to which congress demanded she act independently of the White House, and essentially act as a permanent special prosecutor investigating every move Bill and Hillary made. And she bowed to a lot of that pressure. It is impossible to imagine Gonzales acting independently of Bush, doing anything without White House approval, much less actually investigating the administration for anything.

Some have asked why some lefties criticize AIPAC and the policies of the right-wing leadership in Israel but don't also criticize the countries surrounding Israel. As far as I know, the left has generaly been VERY critical of heavy US support for Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan (anti-democracies, all). Support for those countries is a fixture of Neo-con foreign policy, not the left. I sometimes wonder if US support for Egypt and Saudi Arabia in particular is an attempt to prolong the status quo in Israel (constantly keeping Israel on a war footing, as support for Islamic extremists in the Palestinian territories flows from Egypt and the Saudis). Neo-cons in general seem to WANT war to surround Israel, by arming both sides. Nothing would disempower both the right wing in Israel, AIPAC and the neo-cons than peace in the middle east.

I've seen a number of times the figure cited that the USAs have investigated/prosecuted 80% dems and 20% repubs, with the claim that this supports the case that the USAs have been politicized. I absolutly believe it, but it would be sooo easy for others to say, well, thats because dems are corrupt and commit 80% of the crime (election fraud, in particular). Imagine the situation were the other way around: a democratic set of USAs pursuing a bunch of repubs for campaign finance irregularities: we would argue that it's because repubs commit all the crime. I'm just saying you can't build a casa based on this evidence, because it could be so easily turned around.

Nice point, D. S. This is nothing but tragic, like Edwards or not.

is that there is no such thing as 'good government,' only more or less government (the less the better). This idea links katrina, the USAs, the current GSA scandal, and countless others. If you don't believe in the possibility of government doing good work, you pack it with political hacks and opportunists. You don't want an official who will actually do a good job, because that would prove your conservatism wrong. The job of every conservative government official is to be a political operative on behalf of the party, and nothing else. Protect the environment? Prosecute injustice? Fix the nation's physical infrastructure? Take care of sick veterans? On principle, you don't want the government to DO ANYTHING.

Cultural attitudes have been shifting for hundreds of years, but we've always got conservative and liberal parties. It's the dividing line between them that shifts. Just because Americans are becoming more pro-choice and pro-gay rights doesn't mean the democrats will begin to defeat republicans. This presidential campaign already presents us with two republican candidates who will were both recently pro-choice and pro-gay rights. It's certainly a good thing that those particular red-meat divisions will pass, but conservatives will surely come up with new cultural bogey-men to rally the hateful, fearful, and insecure who make up their base. (hatred of the well-educated? fear of foreigners?)

I don't wholly agree with it, but I've always liked the oft-repeated saying that atheism is a faith in the same way that not collecting stamps is a hobby.