franken was good in the stuart smalley days -- nothing i've seen since has been terribly amusing.

as for the LW from colorado -- yes, as a matter of fact, i do care about the rural areas of your state and what they're going through, at least in the abstract. what you guys aren't getting is that everything's connected. the local is global, etc.

there's a very real, very unique political reality here in new york, and it needs to be addressed at every level, not just the senate. we just, for the first time in i don't know how many years, flipped the state senate dem. (i know you guys don't give a shit about this, but bear with me.) upstate depends on NYC for tax dollars -- something like 15% comes from wall st. profits -- they rely on upstate for utilities. but the money coming back is not distributed equally. not even close.

part of what a senator does is chair those big-ticket committees and make deals on nat'l issues in the back rooms, sure, i get it. another part of what a senator does is fight for specific parts of his or her state that are suffering. somehow i doubt that a NYC heiress who's probably never set foot up here will do that; i could be wrong. that's all i'm saying.

no gavin, YOU'RE the one who doesn't get it. this isn't a game. just because kennedy is a big flashy name that you and others seem to think will secure the seat for dems in the future -- i can't really see any other reason given for your preference for her in your letters -- doesn't mean she's best for NY or the country. and just for the record, i grew up outside of detroit, so i know damn well what's going on there.

go back and look at the state-by-state breakdown of obama's popular vote percentage. outside of hawaii and a few small east-coast states, where is it highest? and why do you think that is? yes, NYC has something to do with it, but the absolute recession going on here -- and recessions historically hit upstate NY harder and last longer than just about everywhere else -- has a lot to do with it as well. i seriously doubt that any half-competent dem who fills the seat will have trouble getting re-elected in two years.

but you'll have to explain the reasoning here. i DON'T see how a kennedy appointment is automatically "better for the country." i DON'T see why the actual needs of living, breathing new yorkers, who need someone in place to fight for them, are less important than what you see as a senator's duty to somehow represent the whole country. that's why senators are elected to represent states, and have a base in certain parts of states.

also, i don't see how this compares in any way with franken-coleman in minnesota. yes, i'd prefer franken... because he's a DEMOCRAT. i'd imagine that he'd do a better job representing the workers and lower classes of minnesota than a republican would, period. and he would get us that much closer to a fili-proof majority in the senate. aside from that i think he's a clown. and not even a very good one. none of that is in play in new york. the seat will be filled by a democrat. that democrat will have every reasonable advantage when it comes to the election in two years, whether it's a kennedy or not. the only real question is whether that person will serve the state of new york.

OK, I'll tell you why you're wrong, and it echoes exactly what emmafinn wrote in objecting to carolyn kennedy as senator. upstate new york is dying. population is fleeing, unemployment is sky-high, plants are closing, neighborhoods and infrastructure is crumbling.

i know all of you in "flyover country" think we in new york sit here sipping martinis and hanging out in times square. but where i live has a lot more in common with suffering midwestern cities and towns than it does with manhattan. in fact, there's a great deal of resentment here for the fact that much of the power generated in upstate new york goes to subsidize cheap utilities downstate. paterson keeps coming back to the suny system wanting to slash more from an already crippled budget.

is that clear enough for you?

it's bad enough that this appointment will likely be filled by someone who never set foot in upstate new york. we really need a senator who is at least willing to fight for it.

this is the perfect ending to a disastrous presidency that has also been entirely without humor -- except the half-resigned, half-outraged black humor of those like stewart and colbert et al.

if there's any justice in the world, this incident will be featured prominently not only in any post-mortems to bush's administration, but in the man's obituary.

This is depressing. My mom and stepdad -- staunch listeners of Rush Limbaugh who no doubt voted 2x for Bush and now for McCain -- are both auto industry workers who were able to retire at age 55, thanks to their generous UAW benefits. Wonder how they're feeling today?

I'm tired of listening to folks blame the UAW. As has been pointed out elsewhere, the Big Three are a model when it comes to employer-paid health benefits. They've been saving the gov't billions each year in health care costs for millions of workers. What's going to happen when all those people suddenly need to be switched to Medicaid?

Sure the wages and other benefits need adjusting, but why should an honest lifetime's work not reward one with some security and decent health care? I don't care what people say about foreign car workers and southern plants. Ask those workers who they'd rather work for. The real issue here is poor management and a lack of foresight that goes back 30 years (if not 50). Don't blame the workers.