In the one I watched yesterday evening, Clinton dissembled, triangulated, and carefully backed into her answers. In contrast, Kucinich, Obama, and Edwards often crisply answered questions succinctly and directly; the words "yes" or "no" often preceded a fuller answer, words rarely heard elsewhere.

Although not as far left as I would prefer, the responses of these three were clearly left of center. This is the first time I can remember since I voted for McGovern that any Democratic contenders with a real chance (well, sadly, not Kucinich) of winning the Democratic presidential nomination are openly progressive.

(Speaking of progressives, Clinton missed a great opportunity to take back the term the proud ownership of "liberal" and what the heritage of liberals we all - including all stripes of conservative - now enjoy.)

I look forward to the true choices I will have in the Michigan Democratic caucus next year. As for the general election...

So winners:

Manipulate intelligence to start an illegal war

Eavesdrop illegally

Banish habeas corpus

Torture

Out a covert CIA agent

Obstruct justice in investigating the outing

Cage votes

Inject blatant partisanship into the DOJ

Fire US Attorneys for political reasons

Attempt to coerce sickbed sign-offs on illegal activity

Commit perjury to cover up illegal activity within DOJ

Makes me pretty happy to be a loser if that is what constitutes being a winner.

Jim,

Thanks! I'm copying this list and putting in my wallet to pull out in bars, at my in-laws, etc, wherever I encounter the uninformed citizenry. Mayhaps I will laminate it, given the long slog ahead to recovery.

Also, I completely agree with the poster who said that ALL unions in a secular republic should be civil unions. A politician should NEVER use the word sanctity to discuss marriage or any other right. Politicians don't confer sanctity. Secular governments don't confer sanctity. How marriage got mixed up with the rights afforded by the federal government is a complete mystery to me.

All marriages already are legal as civil unions. Couples cannot be legally married by any religious ritual -- which merely "sanctifies" the union. Only the state is empowered to endow marriage with those rights of kinship and property virtually only heterosexual couples now enjoy. Repeat: Marital rights are not derived from the rituals of religious institutions; in all instances these rights come from the secular state.

Even the Puritans, who founded a sin-obsessed, Calvinist theocracy, cast marriage as a civil contract, thereby recognizing the right to divorce. I don't know the provenance of this legal definition as it has endured into today's secular laws, but it's still true: religious institutions cannot and do not give the legal rights of union being sought by gay and lesbian couples; only the state can.

All primary candidates probably or should know this. Some may even be in support of gay and lesbian marriage, but they are in the political bind that the right has brilliantly achieved by creating election wedge issues heavily weighted with mis- and disinformation.

Anyone who has been around as long as I have knows Democrat legislators have never marched to the same drummer, or were even about to do so because their party leaders told them to. As some congressional leader once said, "[Getting the Democrats in line] is like is like herding cat." Or the oft-quoted observation that, "The Democrats eat their young."

Since Andy Jackson, and through the party's many morphs, there is one constant: the texture of the party's coalitions have always brought a mixed bag of agendas to D.C. That has been especially apparent with the winning challengers in the 2004 mid-term election, many of who won because of the Iraq issue, but whose constituents are far from progressive.

Democrats are not borgs. Because its party has a more inclusive tent than the Republicans', its spectrum reach from right to left is much wider than that of the Republicans'.

Both Reid and Pelosi are wrestling with this realty. Consider the Democrats, in both chambers, who crossed the aisle to vote with the Republicans on some contentious, recent bills. Many are freshman who defeated Republicans in closely contested elections.

somewhere deep in the warrens of the DoJ, there's a party goin' on.

I caught that shiek's expression too, reading it as one unhappy man caught on film as a prop in a photo op.

Maybe that's the issue, Thomas knows he is unqualified. He doesn't speak during hearings, perhaps because he can't keep up with the proceedings and doesn't want to expose his shortcomings and lack of mental facility.

Ah, yes. In other words, Thomas is smart enough to know he's not smart enough.

Adam's favorite recipe was Eve's Short Ribs?

Gonna get ugly, and in not too long a time.

Tragically true. Intimations of it began here at precisely 9:27 pm.

TV is a poor medium for disseminating news. It's a media that effectively transmits images, but poorly communicates news, which is more effectively articulated through language. Talking heads would be insufferably boring if their comments were longer than 30 to 40 seconds per bite. Yet in the media of print, those same journalists or pundits can hold the interest of the reader for pages on the same topics.

TV imagery can be powerful when the story is in the image. Coverage of the Vietnam war was a crucial factor in galvanizing the anti-war movement. Likewise, images of the Selma marchers being brutally repelled in 1965 by state and local police, and the Chicago police attack on demonstrators at the 1968 Democratic Convention strongly influenced the viewers.

But understanding the consequences of pending policies of the FCC, EPA or other agencies and departments cannot be adequately treated by a media that holds the viewer's attention by virtue of rapidly-paced factoids and glitzy studio settings.

Polls show that most of America gets its "news" from TV rather than print, which is why newspapers are an endangered species and this country no longer has an "informed citizenry".