McCain has either completely lost his mind, or he's taking a calculated risk.

One would assume he's anticipating that conservatives and moderate conservatives will vote for him irrespective of his current evangelical-courting rituals based on two factors; his political history and that they'll still vote for a Republican they don't agree with rather than a Democrat (it worked in 2004).

In the meantime he can cuddle up with the far-right evangelical groups to try and shore up their support, and take the wager that he won't lose all his other supporters in the process.

Since the creation of the IRS and Social Security.

I'm as appalled at all this as anyone, but if we wanted to keep the government out of our innocuous personal affairs then we missed the boat by almost 150-years.

I only care about this, because he's a politician who is supposed to have public service at the forefront of his life during the time he's in office.

All the maneuvering, fornicating, and evading implicitly cuts into what he's supposed to be doing... his job. I had the same problem with Clinton, Craig, etc.

If you can't sacrifice your creature comforts and personal ambitions while in elected office of public service, then don't make a run for the position.

There's really no point to electing Republicans like that to Congress either.

I'm not convinced that we ought to just be accepting of the idea that Republicans ought to continue being caricatures of villainy locked in eternal struggle with the presumably virtuous Democrats.

We really ought to be putting heat on all these elected officials, as 60%+ of them are only representing ~20% of us.

That's what I'd like to know.

Despite having somewhat different policy goals from Bush and McCain, her manner of politics and abrogation of the duty to public, rather than personal, service seems in lock-step with her colleagues across the aisle.

Isn't the real problem here that we're continually electing highly competitive ideologues and opportunists to office? People for whom winning the election and hammering on the opposition is the reward of election; not the service to the public, nor the oath to the law.

Clinton, Bush, and McCain '08 (an entirely different man than McCain '00) all share a single unifying characteristic. Each of them views deviation from the purity of their positions as defeat rather than development, and for an individual who simply cannot tolerate defeat; they will simply never accept accountability for mistakes. They are never wrong.

I don't have to agree with a single political ambition or goal of my representation. If my representation can be persuaded by logic, argumentation, and evidence, then they can believe whatever they like, and the rest of us can convince them otherwise.

That is what is missing from Washington today, and I'm not sure this election cycle is poised to restore it.

We won't.

Based on this synopsis; it sounds like the author has done little more than formalize or generalize the following:

- a caricature of the Illuminati

- a spurious lineage of benevolent kingship

- the understanding that totalitarianism works; if it provides the facade of self-determination

Congratulations David Rothkopf for writing 400-pages of unoriginal ideas. Perhaps the members of the "Superclass" should work on their skills of efficiency. Surely they can masturbate themselves into euphoria more expeditiously without a pen in hand.

"It's too short because the "national conversation on race" we all keep promising to have has barely begun, and it would take longer than November to hash out how much Wright's role in Obama's life should mean to voters." -- Joan Walsh

How can this be? It ought to be self-evident that it ought to mean little, or nothing, to voters. Each and every one of us is a friend or family member of someone with some view or opinion that rubs somebody the wrong way. Most Americans seem to think there's something wrong with America. In fact the candidates universally do. If they didn't, then they wouldn't be running for President, or at least they'd be running on a strictly "do-nothing" platform.

With all the ridiculousness and circumstance that surrounds the entirety of American political and entertainment life; Everything surrounding these controversies over Wright, Hagee, and whomever else is nothing more than self-manufactured indignation for its own sake. People make a lifetime practice out of proselytizing via shock-value. Shocking!

If Americans can't resolve that by "November" we need to take a hard look at the benchmark that defines mental-retardation, then replace the existing metric with simply, "American Citizen."

I've never met a man who had a friend whom he genuinely didn't like, yet I know dozens of women who have other female friends which they find abusive, opportunistic, deplorable, aggravating, boring, and just plain don't find pleasurable to relate to.

I've spent countless hours as a sounding-board for these feelings; complaining, bitching, and deriding. After they're all done getting it all out I always ask, "Why are you friends with that person, if they're so horrible and unenjoyable?"

The responses range from, "I feel obligated..." to "Oh, I know it sounds bad, but..." In either case the "friendship" just keeps on trucking, and invariably I can look forward to another earful of the same complaints about the same friend a few days down the road.

It's really quite the tragic comedy as an impartial observer.

Most often these "friends" seem to be someone with whom they have to spend a lot of close-proximity time with; ie. co-workers, roommates, friends of friends, etc.

I have no idea what compels these women to keep company they can hardly tolerate to be around, but I've started to assume one or more of the following:

1) They confuse forced time together by circumstance as a signal for companionship (work, etc).

2) They are masters of exaggeration, but without the realization they're exaggerating, so they internalize feelings that they're simply manufacturing.

3) They have no idea what friends are.