I'm not saying this isn't significant, necessarily. But are the big wigs really interfering with "news content" here? The Olbermann obsession with O'Reilly looks like a schoolyard feud to me.

Believe me, if I were Olbermann's boss, I would have pleaded with him to shut up about O'Reilly months ago.

I quit watching Countdown ages ago because it seemed as though there was very little news content to the show any more. I appreciate Olbermann's forthrightness and he has made some brilliant "special comments," but every time I check to see if he's gotten over O'Reilly yet, he hasn't.

Sometimes I just want to yell, just kiss "Bill-O" already and get it over with.

You are deeply wrong about accusing Wall Street "John Galts" screwing up the economy.

A careful reading of "Atlas Shrugged" shows that Rand repeatedly castigated those who took government favors and exercised greed over integrity.

Our current economic woes stem directly from government insistence that homeownership is a good above all else, encouraging, even requiring, that loans be made to those ill-prepared to assume mortgages, and tax laws which encouraged flipping and had the unintended consequence of driving up home prices by granting credits for state property taxes over a certain amount.

Much of the corruption of Wall Street has occurred because of the many (but mostly ineffective) rules and regulations governing business behavior. Rather than putting their endeavors into productive business growth, Wall Street became about gaming the system. It is unlikely that the character John Galt would participate in such behavior.

There are important lessons to be learned from "Atlas Shrugged." I heartily recommend another reading.

but I did.

It is said there is no better way to ruin a good man than to get him into politics.

As you so eloquently stated, our system was devised on the assumption that we should mistrust government and thus constrain it.

We must endeavor to never make excuses for any politician just because we think he's a good person or we like him or we're wishing and hoping that he's going to do the right thing or even that we so hated his predecessor that we assume anyone else is better.

Thus, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Yes, the "softening" of the Democrats position was easily foreseeable. It is exactly the way the game is played now.

What will also be fun to watch is people who have spent the last year railing about Bush's policies, many of whom have posted letters here, backing off their positions and saying, um, well, really, there are good reasons to and we should never say never and used with good judgement ...

I am pleased that Mr. Greenwald is reserving judgment about what the new administration will do in regard to torture (and in conducting the War on Terror).

However, I would like to point that Mr. Brennan himself noted, "I have been intimately familiar now over the past decade with the cases of rendition ... ." Note, "the past decade": That was in 2005.

While I don't know if President Clinton instigated the rendition program, he certainly used it. Bush elevated it.

No politician is immune from using power, even with good intention (and we know what the road to Hell is paved with).

We must not give President Obama a free pass just because he's a Democrat and beloved man.

Government always bears watching.

While certainly equating the Lewinsky affair with Bush's trampling of the Constitution is ridiculous, President Clinton did not make a clean getaway.

His administration was instrumental in laying the groundwork for President Bush's many excesses.

Under the Clinton administration, the NSA ramped up its data mining spying program which ostensibly spied only overseas. This data was shared with U.S. allies such as Great Britain while Britain spied on Americans and shared that data with the U.S. Both could then claim that they were not spying on their own citizens, no sirree.

The Clinton administration also began the practice of rendition, although on a far smaller scale, of course.

Of course, one cannot claim that the United States was pristine prior to the Clinton administration either.

My junior high and high school was crawling with pregnancies. That was back in the late 60s to mid 70s. No sexy programs on TV then, believe me.

Maybe girls who get pregnant are more likely to watch sexy shows for whatever reason (I won't speculate).

This group went in with an agenda and it shows.

I can accept the pushing down of the emotion in Mad Men, the not revealing the feelings too clearly and all that, but I just didn't feel that the reaction to the Cuban Missile crisis really came across. Yes, emotions implied were good representations, but I just didn't feel it from the actors, with the possible exception of Pete's wife.

The actors just seemed to be "acting;" it didn't feel feel real.

I generally read Ms. Young's opinion pieces in Reason and usuallky find them to be, more or less, er, reasonable. But this really sounds as though she's fallen right off the deep end.

In this case, Ms. Young's rant reminds me a great deal of Ayn Rand's spontaneous combustion during the Red Scare. Ms. Rand, a woman generally devoted to rationality and liberty, went completely off the rails, as evidenced by her testimony before Congress, more than happy to burn people at the stake (perhaps quite literally) for mere association.

Ms. Young is also from Russia and close proximity to evils past and present no doubt left a great impression on her. But it looks as though it has skewed her perceptions, which is a shame, for her insider perspective could be quite valuable in evaluating Russia's relationships.

It is hard to set emotions aside, but Ms. Young would be more effective if she would endeavor to do so.

I thought that Mr. Lieberman had declared himself an "independent" (ha ha) some time ago.