Er... maybe I'm missing something here, but let's bring out our Scandal Scale (tm) and in one cup put Obama's "relationship" with this Rezko dude, and on the other put... oh, let's say George W.'s "fortuitous" insider stock dump that nobody really talked about during the 2000 campaign. How do they compare?

Let's see. Obama is associated with a guy who turned out to be a scumbag and is indicted on charges, correct me if I'm wrong, that are unrelated to anything Obama has done in office. George W. did something for which a less privileged citizen (e.g. Martha Stewart) would end up in jail. Uh huh.

A Republican candidate brazenly breaks the law because he can and the press is mum. A Democratic candidate has a connection to a shady character that may or may not mean anything, and oy gevalt, it's a scandal! Am I reading liberal blogs too much, or is there a liberal bias in the media?

... but virtually every time I read about 'em this year, I get the "record turnout" line. Perhaps the only positive component of Bush's legacy is the sheer amount of disgust he's generated among the people. The Bush administration's disastrous tenure in the White House has highlighted much of what is wrong with our nation and jolted us out of complacency.

In 2000 it was ignorance of what Bush would be like, plus a lackluster Democratic candidate that began the nightmare. In 2004, it was a combination of yet another lackluster Democratic candidate and extreme dirty scare tactics that gave Bush the slimmest of victory margins. This year the Democrats have worthwhile candidates and thus a glimmer of hope that's enough to make enough of us stop being cynical and turn out for the vote.

It's a good thing no matter how you spin it, and no matter what it actually ends up leading to. American Democracy, such as it is, is not gone or forgotten, it's just buried under decades of accumulated corruption and filth. But the core values are not corroded, and now and then they seem to glimmer through. Thank the gods.

There's a significant difference between Gates and the CEO of WalMart: Gates WAS Microsoft in the beginning. He is not a Harvard-educated MBA who joined a company he has a marginal personal stake in. He built the damn thing from the ground up and learned to be an enterpreneur by, I suppose, faking it till he made it. He was one of the starters of the computer boom, after all, they all flew by the seat of their pants at first.

Take this with a grain of salt, but there's a likelihood that Gates means what he says because he's an individual doing his own thing, a human being who thinks like a human being and has a human being's concerns. Whoever speaks for WalMart does just that: speaks for WalMart. WalMart is a corporate entity, interested only in making moolah, the more the better, never mind how. If it means giving a pep-talk on helping people, well, that's what they will do.

I'm a lot more inclined to believe the human Gates rather than the corporation WalMart.

I'd like to add that the structure of the DNA molecule is actually not that hard to understand, which is why it's very surprising that they always get it wrong on TV. (And I'm not saying that just because I'm a molecular biologist, it really IS pretty straightforward, now that it's been figured out.)

Of course, the mechanics of DNA maintenance (replication, repair, etc.) are a morass, and there's quite a bit of argument going on in the field about these. However, lack of understanding in these disciplines by one or few specialists does not translate into immediate global consequences in quite the same way that lack of understanding of economic processes does.

This is a difference between basic sciences and applied sciences: basic scientists can get it wrong. In fact, we DO get it wrong, 90% of the time. Most of our experiments fail, most of our theories are limited at best, completely off the mark at worst. Which is fine, we're discovering things. On the other hand, a surgeon has no room for error. Which is why they do a lot of memorizing in medical school, and not much at all in graduate school.

Economists seem to be very quick in applying their theories, such that as soon as some theorist in a think tank dreams up a neat idea, it's put into practice by his adherents who are in positions of power. And if he's wrong, boom, problems. Of course, this is just what I think. I'm not an economist, by any stretch. And if you realize that in my area of expertise I'm wrong 90% of the time, what about stuff that I've no idea about?

Problem is, it looks like even those who CAN parse the numbers and draw the charts are not that far removed from where I am. Nor can they really afford to make mistakes. To reiterate: if I screw something up, I can always redo the experiments. If Ben Bernanke screws up, people lose their homes. It's a whole another ballgame.

Why, oh why do even the more bright among the bloggers, columnists and pundits try so hard to paint a presidential campaign as a boxing match? Seriously, can't we have an argument (no matter how passionate) between female activists on whom to endorse without making it look like a nasty catfight? To me, for example, all the quotes above show that the Democrats have two quality candidates that people can finally get behind with abandon, as opposed to hold their nose and vote for the lesser of two evils. Is that a bad thing? Do we have to view the back and forth between their supporters and/or detractors as a fight?

It saddens me when smart and articulate commentators like Ms. Traister jump so willingly onto the disturbing Maureen Dowd bandwagon. You really could do far better.