It is absolutely true that there are a lot of folks on the Left that are hypocrites, or that don't recognize that the position "to understand all is to forgive all" means you have to understand and forgive people who hold positions odious to you, too. That you have to acknowledge that, even though it might seem to you wrong-headed and stupid for someone to (say) be a creationist, that's their right, just as it is your right to believe (say) that markets are evil or health-care should be non-profit only or single-payer, or whatever. If you demand that the Right shut up when you burn a flag in protest, you can't be all bent out of shape when someone with a religious POV wants to propose legislation based on his or her religion.

(I happen to think that folks on the Right are far, far, far more hypocritical than those on the Left, but that's just my opinion.)

Robert Novak was an odious human being, in my opinion. Hell, he relished being "the Prince of Darkness." His support of supply-siderism is enough to put a stake through the heart of his legacy (if any), in my view. I am absolutely not sorry that he is dead, and 78 is not exactly being taken young. But I also have no desire to publicly dance on his grave. He's dead, we're better off without him (in my opinion), and that's it.

Joan, you missed one important reason why people may have voted for Obama rather than Clinton in the primaries: the belief that nothing would energize the Republican base like another Democratic candidate named "Clinton". I personally thought that Clinton could never be elected President; I felt her negatives among independents (and even some Democrats!) were simply too high.

Maybe I'm being pedantic, but it is another reason people had for voting for Obama over Clinton.

Joan writes:

But if they back the cowardly, insurance-company-funded Democrat/GOP compromise right now, they will lose even if they win – and taxpayers and health care recipients will lose the most. Obama may not share all of my political priorities and values, but I know he's at least as smart as I am. What am I missing here?

I do not believe that this is true, because I'm a cynical pessimist who just finished 8 years of the Bush Administration and grew up in the shadow of Watergate, but one possibility is that Obama is playing what Andrew Sullivan calls "rope-a-dope." Perhaps Obama is taking the "bipartisan approach" as far as it can go so that, when time comes to simply ram it through--e.g., now--the Republicans will have demonstrated to all and sundry that they will not bargain in good faith, that they are not reasonable partners in trying to create legislation, and so Obama can ignore them without political fallout.

I don't think it's the case, but it's a possibility.

Let's take Ms. Fortini's number of 6.4 million iPhone users. Let's say that the satisfaction rate is 99.9%. Doing the math, that leaves 6400 pissed off users, a lot of whom (the majority, I would be willing to guess) are reasonably computer literate, and have some desire to post on sites like iHateMyiPhone. 6400 people can post a lot of hate messages, some of them probably pretty clever. Unless that site has, say, three quarters of a million readers and posters, then her math is a little scanty when it comes to supporting her assertion.

I'm sure Ms. Fortini's hate is well-earned; far be it from me to deny someone their pleasure at ranting (I do it all the time). But it's always dangerous to treat an outlier like a trend. She may believe that the statistics she heard are "bunk," but until such a time as she quotes better ones, she's engaging in "anecdotal evidence." And when one is proving something, I'm afraid it's the anecdotal evidence that's usually considered "bunk."

Well, can the DNC admit that Reid is a hopeless, spineless, ineffectual dweeb and allow a primary challenge to be mounted against him now? Or perhaps he can see the writing on the wall and resign when his term is completed, and let someone else take over.

Why the country at large and the Democratic party in particular have had to put up with this conciliatory, appeasing zero for so long is beyond me. LBJ would have eaten him alive.

The argument of politicians and Washington "insiders" such as Chuck Todd has been that, should anyone pursue prosecutions of those responsible for torture--i.e., the authors, disseminators, and defenders of the policy itself, like Cheney, Addington, Yoo, and so on--it would turn into a "political food fight," be "catnip for the press," and lots of other arguments to the extent that the Right would get all up in arms over "being prosecuted for policy" that nothing would get done.

So now, even after Holder has made it clear that the investigation is only going to go after those folks who tortured incorrectly, and is going to leave the policy makers alone; even after Obama himself has spoken for months about "looking forward, not back;" even now, when The Big Kahuna document is released still heavily redacted; despite all this, the Right--such as Rep. King, Dick Cheney, Joe Lieberman, and many, many others--are going into Outrage Overload (http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/08/25/prosecutor/index.html).

Well, it's already a political food fight, catnip for journalists, and everything else anyone could have predicted. As such, can we now, please, go after the authors of this heinous policy rather than the low-level drones who carried it out? Dick Cheney has all but admitted to actual war crimes; can't we please call his arrogant bluff?