They have the momentum when they're winning; they have the momentum when they're losing. Tax cuts are necessary in a time of surplus; tax cuts are necessary in a time of deficits. The surge is needed to secure Iraq; the surge is needed to hold the gains.

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."--Albert Einstein

...but I don't see it. I don't care how popular Jeb may appear to be--the Bush brand has been effectively (and thankfully)destroyed in American political discourse. I'm not one to underestimate the stupidity of voters, mind you, but I think even aloof citizens would readily perceive this as a step toward a presidential campaign. What might THAT slogan look like: "This Time We'll Get It Right?"

I have it on good information that those turkeys were al Qaeda. Palin was just polishing her foreign policy cred.

From where I sit, the GOP handwringing about straw men and phantasmic threats from an Obama presidency illuminates how truly cowardly most conservatives are these days. Quick to discard diplomacy; quick to feed the flesh, blood and bone of other people's children into the machinery of discretionary war; quick to embrace testosterone-laden rhetoric to whip the uninformed public into a froth. They are the last, however, to lead by example. They are the most dangerous form of REMF--the policymaking variant.

America, beware the fool who shrieks at his own shadow.

And I'm not going to hamstring my own critique with a perfunctory nod to his military service. I can think of plenty of people who served in combat who were also consummately unethical and incompetent. How did we arrive at this fraudulent conclusion that military service automatically entitles the veteran to any leadership role? That's counterfactual and dangerous.

Obama's critics call him an opportunist, but I have yet to see anything BUT political opportunism coming out of McCain's mouth. The guy is a farce, and personifies today's GOP: morally, intellectually, and ethically bankrupt.

...but I seem to recall that the status of "Washington outsider" was once celebrated--indeed, as recently as 2000, when the Boy King marketed himself thus.

Given the craven character of the United States Congress in the last eight years, I would consider Obama's limited participation to be a considerable asset.

...let's not forget Cliff Schechter's account of McBush calling his wife a c*nt! To date, I have seen no news of a libel suit against the author.

"Sweetie," while perhaps not altogether innocuous, damned sure pales by comparison.

Has Ms. Ferraro supplied any examples of sexism emanating from Obama's campaign? I readily acknowledge the presence of sexism over the course of the primary campaign (see: "Iron My Shirt") but it appears no more or less pernicious than the racism that has substantively affected Obama's efforts (West Virginia headquarters vandalism).

Ferraro has certainly burnished her credentials for shrillness, but it's disingenuous to cry "sexism" broadly, with no evidence with which to support it. Then again, disingenuous may be Ferraro's stock-in-trade.

Like Bayard, I was stunned--albeit elated--to watch Cook take home the prize. I fully expected the legions of pre-pubescent Arch-drones to overwhelm the switchboard. As the penultimate episode concluded, I mused to my wife that the difference between Cook and Archuleta--beyond age and experience--was the difference between an artist and a balladeer. Since AI has consistently proven more interested in market-ready bubblegum than real talent, I prepared for disappointment, knowing that DC would find an HOV lane to a recording contract nonetheless, and that I would buy his wares.

American Idol seems to reflect so much of what we have become as a nation, and the irony is that, in my view, the party largely responsible for the transformation is the television medium. That sounds trite, sure, and it's a process that's been ongoing since the debut of commercial television in the 1950s, but our national preoccupation with consuming images has led us to favor those who present the appearance of quality over those who actually possess quality. To my great relief, Cook's significant margin of victory suggests that not everyone has given up the fight. AI does not (yet) reflect the superficial hive consciousness that defines so many other venues of the American character--not least of which, our political discourse.

Someone evidently still cares about motorcycle maintenance, and as trivial as the outcome of AI truly is, I find some hope there.

They come from Karl Rove. Need more be said?

What a truly small man occupies such a large office at this hour. January 20 can not come fast enough.

...at the university level. I find this book to be useful but something less than the revelation the reviewer suggests it to be. None of the information disclosed here presents anything new or particularly startling. The utility of this tome may lie only in the fact that these lesser-known data have been assembled in a single volume.

How refreshing will it be to have a president who transcends the machismo with which this country has managed its foreign policy for the last half century, and leads this nation by listening to his brains rather than his balls?

The Republicans and the corporate media focus in marginalia because they don't want the public thinking about substantive issues. Why? Because conservatives flatly can not win that discussion--the Republican Party in its current incarnation is bankrupt of ideas. Its answer to economic times both threadbare and flush is tax cuts. Its answer to foreign policy questions both nuanced and urgent is force. When someone supplies the same answer to any condition, they have no answer at all.

It's an insult to the public intellect that conservatives focus on trivialities, and both Clinton and Obama should attack that. The implication is that Americans are too stupid to understand complex policy questions, and thus must focus on the trite and meaningless.