I must say that I find it truly hilarious that currently this article is appearing on the Salon front page immediately below the article "It is 2011. John Boehner is Speaker of the House" (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/08/26/2011/). All I could think was, "Man, if Boehner becomes Speaker, I sure as hell will need some anti-depressants!"

Andrew, I think that the panic of 1873 is fairly instructive as well. Or maybe the Panic of 1893, which was caused partly by financial problems in conjunction with railroad (rather than housing) overbuilding.

Very little new under the sun, is there?

Seriously: Thank you, Glenn, for putting words to what I felt the moment I saw the AP report on "reporter" Jenna Bush.

These people have been spewing hypocrisy so long they no longer even recognize it. It's water to fish for them; their natural element.

Vincent, I couldn't agree more: http://open.salon.com/blog/douglas_moran/2009/08/30/on_torture_and_obstufication.

and all the other folks who point out the many, many other instances in our purported "merit-based" society where being the child of the famous or powerful gets you an opportunity you don't otherwise rate: you folks are just proving Greenwald's point. I mean, you know that, don't you?

And libertyaintfree, are you really equating actors to the people we have running our government and our media? Honestly, that says as much about how broken our political and media establishment is than almost anything else.

I can only imagine what would happen to Ms. Goldman had she been forced to endure a men's locker room in high school. She's worried about toenail clippings? Honey, you go into a men's locker room, and it's foot fungus and hepatitis and God knows what else; an overweight naked guy stretching out would be the least of my worries.

Good Lord.

Well, I think that the answer to the question depends on how the study's authors define "liberal" and "conservative." If we go by classic definitions, rather than the dreck that's peddled by Democrats and Republicans these days, that would imply that (as you said) liberal means "more government", while "conservative" means less government, lower taxes, and so on.

Under this rubric, it's easy to say the way in which Dads would become "conservative;" if they're the ones working and paying the bills, they want less of their takehome pay deleted for tax purposes, and they're the ones having to deal with the incredibly arcane and stupid tax policies. So it's easy to fall into a mindset where you think, "We need a flat tax, because it's simpler and fairer; government is taking too much of my money--I need it for my family; government is spending my money on stupid shit like rockets to the moon and midnight basketball--I need it to pay my medical bills;" and on and on.

Just a guess. Most people don't think very creatively, and so it's easier to say, "Stop taking my money!" than it is to think, "Gee, if they took a tiny bit of money from people making over $250,000, then maybe my health care expenses would go down."

The surprise at the White House (and in Congressional offices) at the rage of the left over the (seeming) death of the public option is, well, a surprise. It's so simple. The left wants single-payer. The lawmakers took that off the table right from the start. So from our perspective, we've already made a huge compromise. Now it's time for the spineless, compromising, accommodating, appeasing lawmakers to make theirs. We're done. Simple.

When you start the operation by chopping off someone's leg, and then say, "Well, now let's compromise by you chopping off your other leg before we talk about me trimming my toenails," don't expect the one-legged man to be pleased.

No; the driving idea behind reform has been to make health care affordable, not health coverage. And the way to do that is to take the profit motive out of it. Like with single-payer, or a public option.

On this one, Obama is simply wrong. I could give a rip if the insurance companies' health divisions go bankrupt and cease to exist; I care very much to make health care in this country affordable for all.

This guy is the textbook definition of "shifty-eyed." How anyone with an ounce of sense could vote for a jerk-weed like this is, quite frankly, baffling to me.

Joan, my quibble is that Obama said that the "driving force" behind reforming health care has been to make sure everyone has access to "coverage." I think that is very, very wrong, and a terrible concession to the insurance industry. (An industry that I, unlike Obama, wouldn't mind seeing dry up and blow away, as I truly believe that they are simply parasitic, and provide no service to the public at large.)

No, I think what we want is to ensure everyone has access to health care, and coverage be damned. By providing this node to the insurance industry, he has automatically linked health care reform to the continuance of that industry, and I (and a lot of other progressives, I'm sure) think that is a horrible, horrible mistake.

Republicans are right in one way: I do view the "public option" as a stalking horse for what we really want, which is single-payer. But when Obama talks to progressives about "compromise," I feel he is forgetting something: his "progressive friends" have already compromised by swallowing hard and allowing single-payer to be taken off the table from the beginning of the debate. Asking for further concessions is like telling a guy who just amputated his own leg, "Okay, that's a start, but if you really want to show bi-partisan spirit, you need to amputate the other leg before we start talking about me trimming my toenails."

Okay, so maybe this isn't a quibble. Sorry 'bout that.

Nothing like well-reasoned, cogently stated debates, is there gentlemen?