is not "on to something".

He's a fool who mistakes his imagination for powers of observation. He has an ongoing fantasy that he has any kind of insight into "regular people".

It's also worth saying that he'll always say the Democratic nominee is "out of touch". It's the equivalent of a verbal tic by now. Whenever anybody asks how a millionaire with seven (nine?) houses and a super-wealthy wife could himself be "in touch" by comparison, the question never gets answered.

stands up for the rights of the rich and powerful! Way to go, Donut!

No, if somebody had come to me on September 12, 2001, or indeed on July 8, 2005 when I was in London two blocks from an exploding bus, I would not have said "Well of course it makes sense to throw somebody in prison forever for simply being a chauffeur".

You may be content being a craven supporter of torture and lawless detention, but don't project your personal faillings on others, thankyouverymuch.

These sham trials do not advance American interests one iota, nor do they increase my personal security either. Throwing a chauffeur in prison for every is an act of mindless bullying. But apparently you approve of that.

Yes, in my mad world (which consists of the US outside of SanFrancisco), driving around a terrorist responsible for the deaths of 3000+ innocent people which paralyzes the nation with fear, is a crime worthy of a life sentence.

I'm still not seeing how this is even a crime, much less one deserving a life sentence.

So yeah, I think you're pretty much barking mad. Has it occurred to you that manifest injustice on display here might serve to radicalize more young Arabs to create more terrorists?

Is this the attitude that you have towards people sent to concentration camps and gulags? "Well, it's the law on the books, don't blame me!"

As for the nation "paralyzed with fear", again - speak for yourself. Unlike you, I was less than 25 miles from terrorist attacks on both 9/11 and 7/7. Somehow, I was never "paralyzed with fear".

Laws (and indeed, morals and a sense of justice) are useless if they are quickly discarded when life becomes difficult. I'm so tired of people rationalizing extreme bullying national behavior because of the actions on one day. In the 6 1/2 years since 9/11, the US has caused far more deaths in the Middle East than happened on 9/11, and many of the dead were just as innocent as the people in the Twin Towers.

So that's my problem. If you can justify lifetime prison for somebody being a chauffeur, isn't it just as easy to justify car-bombing the military base of a nation that has repeatedly used aerial bombing to level villages throughout Iraq ?

If simply being the driver of a car belonging to a man who caused 3,000 deaths and a nation "paralyzed with fear" justifies lifetime imprisonment, what about being the driver of a car belonging to man who has caused 300,000 deaths and a nation not only "paralyzed with fear", but indeed flattened by aerial assaults?

If your threshhold for extreme action is so low, you cannot be surprised when others follow your lead. I'm just not seeing how this ends up being a good idea.

He's planning on suing for copyright infringement.

Hey, dumb ass. I am an American who lives in the DC area. I lived in London from 2005-2007. Lots of Americans live in Europe. In particular, thousands live in London. More generally, academics often follow careers that require them to move from one city to another.

You hopeless dumb ass. Apparently you cannot fathom the possibility that a person could live in DC in 2001 and in London in 2005. How can we take your opinion seriously about anything?

Your only response is to feminize people who challenge your manhood. I'm calling you out. You're a wimp and a fool.

"Middle class has become a dirty word to the left".

Well, most of us are in the middle class, so I have no idea what you are talking about.

As for NYC having 380,000 public employees, we are talking about a city that has more than 8 million people. You're going to have to do a bit better than cite a large number as if that by itself is evidence that the government is too large.

Keep up the shallow talking points!

Every week, the noise machine wheels out a new strategy of attack. We've gone through "Obama is too inexperience" to "Obama is just a celebrity" to "Obama is getting tiresome due to overexposure."

Rather than treating this arguments as if they were seriously made, Salon would serve its readers better if they simply acknowledged that all of them are content-free talking points. The readers would be more interested in seeing these talking points tracked through the media at large than with any silly attempt to address the points substantively.

The reason it is silly to address the points substantively is because their purpose is not to foster serious debate. Their purpose is solely to put Obama in a negative light.

I realize Salon, like most media outlets, is maintaining the usual premise of objectivity, but it really is more interesting to ask the questions why and how are these arguments being made rather than the relatively unimportant questions that the arguments themselves raise.

Actual voters give a damn about the future of the United States. If Salon writers suffer from ennui, perhaps they should take August vacations. And, above all, stop pretending that media phenomena are beyond anybody's control. They do not simply "happen" like the weather. They are driven by people with agendas.