The tenor or most of the comments here confirms, largely, the image I had in mind as I read Sidney's eloquent, impassioned letter: that of a slight, but well-read scholar sent to present a bill of attainder to some carnivorous sasquatch in the midst of a blood-soaked feeding frenzy.

It's too late, Mr. B. And the sad thing, as some here have also pointed out, is that little beyond the superficial will change with a new administration.

Our ship of state has been mainly headed off-course since that bright November day in Dallas 44 years ago; w and his crew have just managed to set it on a direct heading for eternal damnation.

No, if the once-golden promise of the American experiment with democracy is to be regained, it will come not from the words or deeds of any diplomacy czar, nor from the official policy of any president. It will come from that whence it was born -- the will of its people.

And for those with a keen eye, it should come as no surprise to note that we are not a united lot.

If Bush is captain of a ship fully aflame, rudderless and adrift on roiling seas with nary a sextant, or chart, or understanding of the heavens to guide him, Giuliani is the skipper who'll take her right over the edge of the earth into the black abyss.

if the dogs in many other parts of the world could get to America, they would. If they have a plan to dominate us, it's not working nearly so well in, say, Mexico or Nepal as it is in the good ol' USA.

about this is that a person with Col. Boylan's lack of facility with the English language has a job as a Public Affairs officer and personal spokesman for the General leading America's War on Terror.

We are apparently in much more dire straits than anyone can imagine.

While there may be, as John Palcewski offers, what seems to be a constructive suggestion for encouraging the military to investigate the matter of how someone is able to send out emails in the name of one of our most important military officials in Iraq...it would seem far more likely, given the way the military operates, that a loose cannon like Boylan would have been relieved of his position long before things got to this point.

The fact that Boylan and/or his doppleganger still have an active centcomm.mil email account seems further evidence of the utter incompetence at the command and control level with which our entire exercise in Iraq has been prosecuted.

Where is the "What You Missed While Watching..." article? Were all the Salon folk getting ready for Halloween, or do we just get play-by-play commentary on Republican debates now?

I'd like to see Hanna Storm play the Kaj Larsen role in the CurrentTV piece Joan Walsh put up yesterday on waterboarding. Not only would it work to resuscitate her dying cred as a journalist, it would be fun to watch...

From everything I can see and hear, the people of the United States don't deserve a First Family with the intelligence and heart of the Kucinich's. It's no wonder DK polls in the single digits.

God help us all...

I was, like, huh?

Real Americans don't compete. They sit around drinking Lite Beer, eating non-fat processed cheese food, and watch stuff on TV.

Been that way since 1956.

See http://inventors.about.com/od/rstartinventions/a/remote_control.htm

It's telling how many commenters so far have (grudgingly) admitted "agreeing" with Dennis Kucinich, or find their own beliefs in alignment with his, or think he "seems like a good guy" (isn't that what got W into office the first time around?)... but can't seem to get behind him because he doesn't look like Mitt Romney (great point, Annie W).

The fact is, Kucinich isn't your barista. He is a U.S. Congressman who has led nearly a lifetime of public service, who has the intelligence and the cajones to run for President of the United States -- TWICE -- and to speak the truth no matter whether he's talking to Dick Cheney or Cesar Chavez or Hanna Pointless Storm.

The fact is, until progressives start voting for the candidates with whom they actually agree instead of for the ones they think are "electable," we're all in a heap o' trouble.

They just a-wanna, they just a-wanna, ah, ah

Girls just wanna have fuh-hun...

Great post, Andrew. Thank you.

So far in this already interminable election season almost everything has been as predictably expected. A swift winnowing of the two major parties' candidates to two or three "electable" representatives advocating a continuing course of song and dance not unlike the one we've been forced to endure lo these past forty odd years, with predictable and expected differences between the Republicans and Democrats that don't, in the end, amount to much.

Ron Paul's Internet cha-ching is the best thing to come along in American politics since John Anderson.

Paul/Kucinich '08

Every single one of these couples -- save for the eventual presidential pair -- is going to have to live with one another after the election. Out of the spotlight, bereft of chili dogs and banquet chicken, unsought by vapid reporters asking inane questions. Once the adrenaline rush of the game Hunter Thompson called "better than sex" is over, they will have only one another to trip down memory lane with and wonder what might have been.

Dennis and Elizabeth Kucinich are the clear winners here.

It's disconcerting to me that so many writers on this topic reject out of hand the notion that the "creator" of the HP Lexicon has provided a work of scholarship and research, and place with JK Rowling the sole authority to bless or deny the possibility that anyone might gain compensation for their efforts thereby.

Then again, considering the level to which understanding and appreciation for scholarship and research have slipped in recent times, it's not surprising.