For the vast majority of our everyday lives, when it could actually make the world a better place, we can't feel true empathy or put ourselves in another's shoes.

But when when we find "that one," some person gets into our skin and we feel like we're under their's...and we feel it so strongly that we can't imagine that we're not really in their heart like they are in ours...we feel like we have a right to be there.

Anyone who has ever felt romantic love knows that you would give anything, any possession, to have it last forever. But of course, that's the whole problem: Sometimes when we love, we're seeing a person as though they were a thing that we could possess.

I guess there's really no point to this letter except my own therapeutic philosophical meanderings. If the LW reads this, I'm sorry, brother. We've all been there and I hope you survive and thrive....soon.

The media is an industry--that's why there is not just an "industry-friendly bias" in the news, but rather the entire paradigm of American "news" exists solely within an industry. What else could you possibly expect but bias towards big business?

They are not afraid of being tagged with "liberal bias"--after all, where did the "liberal bias" meme come from to begin with? There's only one place to popularize such an idea: the media! It was media figures--albeit obscure ones, at the time--who started the whole "liberal bias" nonsense. The media, as an industry, could certainly put the lie to such frivolity if they so wished.

That is why civic-minded people face such an uphill battle.

Personally, I think that there will eventually have to be a sharper, and self-induced, demaracation between cultural inclinations on the part of actual concerned citizens, meaning we will have to self-segregate. For those of us who sincerely plan to continue trying to fight The Death Star (which, by any reasonable estimate, won the battle over thirty years ago) there will have to be a real separation from the "mainstream," in order to lead by example.

In other words, no more complaining about the news whilst continuing to tune in every night to see what there is to complain about. No more going through the motions of civic democracy while ignoring the fact that our elections process, if it was ever legitimate, has become a complete sham, as we stand in line for ten hours to vote, only to be told that we can't because our name isn't on the "approved voter" list. No more begrudgingly going to work and then complaining about Big Business.

Throw your TV out the window, tear up your voter registration card, and don't show up to work anymore. Otherwise, don't complain. The conservatives won "the mainstream" long ago.

...are why Obama's candidacy has had a somewhat galvanizing effect on young voters:

"It really doesn't matter. He is the only two-term Democratic president of my lifetime."

Wow. Really? That's all that matters? Not his policies? Not his personal attributes--or lack thereof?

That is partisan madness at its finest. Anyone on this site would shake their head at a similar statment from a conservative ("well, Bush is the only two-term Republican resident of my lifetime, so I have to set him on a pedestal and worship him in perpetuity") yet I'm assuming that this statement from Joan Walsh actually sounds rational to some people.

The Clinton's and their sycophants are all about "party unity"...as long as they're controlling the party. The instant that the game stops being about personalities, and starts being about principles or ideals, we see the reaction. So much for a "nation of laws, not of men."

Shameful and infuriating.

Of course, no one can say that because for those now just becoming eligible to vote and way back to FDR WJC HAS BEEN the only two-term Democratic president! And this election, as it was with Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry, proves why. Dems cut off their nose to spite their face. The powers that be in the media and the DNC had a bug up their butt about the Clintons, so they demonized them and made a first-term senator--who vowed that he wouldn't run for the presidency right away--a saint fighting off the devil Clintons; and he got a few more votes than she. We see what's already happening in the polls.

Don't be surprised if Democratic presidential history repeats itself.

I wish you could see how this paragraph looks to a 20-something kid who has never paid any attention to politics until they noticed their college tuition doubling or their dad losing yet another job--it reads like nonsense....nonsense and madness.

Indeed, I must be a little mad myself for even contributing another letter to this incestuous mudpit of privileged politicos. It's not like a single person in here could possibly be actually keeping up with all the name-dropping spitefulness and name-calling childishness of this "insider" gossip.

Obama is quite far from the perfect candidate, but he does indeed symbolize a sort of "cry for help" from people who are sick of the exact type of insular and exclusionary "politics" occurring in this thread.

The scary part is that there's a good chance Obama won't be elected--or won't be allowed to win even if he receives more votes--and I shudder to think what the next wake-up call might be from a restless and economically depressed citizenry.

"I'm still pretty furious with John Edwards, not for the affair, but for the way he handled it."

How many versions of this sentiment have I read in the past week?

What is the classy and dignified way to handle an extramarital affair? How does one honorably look their life's partner in the eye and decide to cloak the most intimate part of their psyche--the one relating to sex and love--in deceit and shame?

Relationships are important, and cheaters are assholes. Period.