For the next 8 years, everytime the Dow dips like it did today, get ready for the capital-gains-tax-cut dead-enders to chime in with the fairy tale connecting the drop to Obama and his socialist policies.

Right on cue, Drudge, CNBC's empty suits (Bear Sterns=BUY!!!!), the always comical Fox Bizness Channel and WSJ bloggers pumped up today's 400+ point drop as an Obama backlash.

I assume these smart guys were overly optimistic about a McCain victory on Tuesday - as the Dow spiked upward of 300 points prior to the first election results.

Never mind that the DOW is at negative 24 percent since W wandered into the White House. Sure most of that dip can be blamed on the Clinton recession, of course, which according to most economists, began in March of 2001 - when Clinton was well into his third term of screwing up the country.

And don't forget about 9/11.

I can't wait for next week, when the DOW undoubtedly will grow by over 200 points in one day and then the same crew that subscribes to the ludicrous Goldberg/Steyn/McCarthy/Limbaugh Economic Theorem will point to wingnut Eric Cantor being named the Minority Whip as the main cause.

I know it might be jumping the gun, but as Glenn points out the handwriting is on the wall.

Two weeks ago, C-SPAN ran a press conference (remember those?) of Bill Clinton immediately following the 1994 Congressional races. It was amazing to hear a Democratic President speak of the need to reduce government, slash spending, the need to deregulate while pledging to work with the new majority because they have some "good ideas" and the American people have spoken.

12 years later the voters rejected those DLC Repub-lite principles and far-rightwing policies. This year they voted - in a landslide- a one-term Democratic Senator, Chicago-based, African American with a funny sounding name as President.

But here we are, actually debating whether President-elect Obama will reach out to some of the "moderate" Dems and solid conservatives in a spirit of bi-partisanship. Sensible conservatives such as Dick Lugar, Chuck Hagel, Bob "oh, good another Goldman alum'' Rubin, Joe Lieberman and worst yet, a guy who fucked up the CIA and has done only marginably better as SecDef, Bob Gates.

And frankly, Rahm Emmanuel is a political moderate, regardless of what the Radio/TV whores have to say.

Hoping I'm wrong but the clues are there and Glenn, among others, has begun to connect the dots.

Don't forget the nearly unanimous bi-partisan support against impeaching any of the Bushies.

And the bipartisan support to admonish MoveOn.org.

And whatever happened to Scooter Libby?

Go along to get along. Screw the base and the public.

Wow. What a suprise.

Here response definately represents a subtle change in position. Why else, would she write a 1,000+ word response with the meet of the issue buried about 600 words deep into the letter. Such as:

"As you may or may not be aware, under current law, the Army Field Manual can be revised by the Executive Branch without prior consent from Congress. This is to allow for the possibility of incorporating other legal, humane and noncoercive interrogation techniques that might be discovered to be effective in the future. Just because the Army Field Manual is currently the best available standard for interrogation does not mean we can’t do better."

There is plenty of wiggle room here to alter it. It's a mini-head fake with implication being that we, can make the rule "even more moral and ethical.''

But as GG has documented on numerous occassions, the current crop of Congressional Democratic leadership no doubt will use this vagueness for the exact opposite purpose - to make the Army Field Manual "tougher" on those suspected terrorists.

Where is Charles Kaiser coming from with his critique?

Really, the omitted part of Feinstein's statement is the equivalent of what the Bush administration has been saying for 7 years: "We don't torture and we don't approve of torture".

The important question is simple: Should torture be based on the definitions as outlined in the U.S. Army Field Manual? Statements, clarifications, and more clarifications by PR flacks is ridiculous.

Feinstein and Weyden have failed to give a direct answer to this since the Obama victory.

All of the add-on statements and "further" clarifications are intentionally done to muddle the answer. For Kaiser, and the rest, not to realize this is absurd.

Kaiser's density continues.

Christ! The reason that final sentence was deleted - as GG correctly noted - was because it was a "substance-free sentence".

Rubbish. Nonsense. Meaningless. Crap.

Allegedly, that is what editors are for. There are space limitations to consider and one of the jobs of a newspaper editor is to make stories as concise and "substantive" as possible.

Plain and simple.

So, according to Kaiser, if the final sentence of Feinstein's response (clarification) was 20, 30 or 45 words - and "substance-free" - the journalist and editor are still required to include it in the story.

Utterly ridiculous.

Obama could name Dick Cheney for National Security Advisor and Colin Powell to the UN and some of the self-righteous zombies over at Daily Kos would lineup to hail the nominations as "transformative" while simultaneously ridiculing the progressives for a "lack of patience.''

One of the great ironies of the past year, has been watching how the Kossack community has literally morphed into the "Bushies" of the Democratic Party. Whatever Obama (& friends) say is okay. And anyone who strays too far away from the party-line (or God forbid disagrees!)- Kucinich, C. Sheehan, Nader, Hillary/supporters and to a certain extent, GG - is off-handidly dismissed and subsequently vilified.