want this bill to fail, and I am not "extreme".

Giving 700 billion dollars to bankers as a reward for letting them drive their industry into the ground? That seems "extreme" to me. Extremely anti-democratic.

The entire process seems horribly plutocratic to me. Yes, I'm a bit surprised to see the bipartisan plutocracy isn't getting away with it. But not unpleasantly so. If the bill does fail, then we may get a chance to see what happens when the private sector is left to sort out its own affairs.

I'm guessing the sky won't really fall.

The thing about all these bank failures: somebody out there has the actual money, unless its all imaginary anyway, in which case it doesn't matter at all.

Maybe all the bankers who lost all the money should be sent to Gitmo?

From the beginning of this discussion last week, too many pundits have been focused on the question as to whether this was the "right" solution, as opposed to the very meaningful and important question as to whether it was a solution that the public wants.

From Day 1, it has seemed to me that this bailout proposal is a political disaster. For an amount of money greater than the cost of the war in Iraq, the public gets....well, what does the public get? They get to hand over all the money to bankers! And why should they do that? Because the banks are failing!

I've yet to hear a conclusive argument as to why taxpayers should care about that. I hear a lot of doomsaying with big, frightening words. I hear the interminable talk about "Wall Street" and "Main Street". But throughout, it all seems like argument via metaphor.

I never heard anybody argue the point that the fact that the bill was wildly unpopular was reason itself to vote against the solution. So many pundits and observers suddenly cast the struggle as whether the "courageous" representatives would vote for a bill in spite of the clear evidence that it was politically unpopular.

This is considered "leadership", mind you. To do what rich people tell you to do, as opposed to the public.

I've always thought that Congress should do its function: namely to vote against the bailout. Even if this step leads to the collapse of the financial markets, that is what the legislators should do. Why? Because it's what the people want.

But to be blunt, nobody on Capitol Hill knows what will happen here. Certainly it seems to me that this problem, which had been ignored by public officials for the entire year up to last week, can be dealt with in a manner less severe, draconian, and irreversible than an immediate sign-over of an enormous pile of money.

Your letter is precious.

I'm curious: is Senator Obama also responsible for tooth decay?

McCain's talk of "victory" is not just logically false, it is morally obscene. Our unprovoked invasion destroyed Iraq.

Somewhere along the way, the punditocracy decided that we were no longer allowed to ask questions about why we were in Iraq, but rather all questions had to be framed from the vantage point of "What do we do now?"

The ongoing obtuseness about the moral wrongness of the invasion is astonishing. And it's astonishing to see an intelligent man like Barack Obama allow himself to be berated by John McCain on national TV because McCain insists on clinging to this notion that "the surge" is "winning the war in Iraq".

How does such an intellectually shabby notion get an elevated position of respect in US discourse?

At some point, reporters have to ask the question of McCain: what does it mean to be "winning in Iraq"? If (or rather, when) he cannot give a cogent answer, can we not simply dismiss all of this talk?

As a Pats fan for the last few decades, I'm appalled at the fans in Foxboro who booed the Pats in the game against the Dolphins. How about just a tiny bit of slack, people?

Just because it would piss of the right-wing even more than Hillary Clinton's candidacy did.

When I lived in London from 2005-2007, I would regularly shout out a 'hi, NSA!' when calling home.

Rubbing my hands in anticipation of seeing that in a transcript.

Well, at least there will be prison terms for everybody who violated the law here, right?

Oh wait - the Pelosi-led House and the Reid-led Senate ensured that anybody who violated the law here will never be punished!

This is why it's hard to be partisan these days.

It really isn't Barack Obama's job to tell America what's going on in Georgia. That's the responsibility of the news media.

The idea advanced by Priest, namely that it's the duty of the other candidate to call McCain on a lie, is utterly bizarre. It presupposes the notion that the media is simply watching the campaign process and not actively participating.

The problem with Georgia is the same problem we had with Iraq, and indeed the same problem with pretty much every major foreign policy issue. There are maybe three people in all of the networks who have more understanding of foreign policy than a well-informed European teenager. (I know of only one - Christiane Amanpour, but I'm allowing for the possibility of two more.)

So you think taxation=stealing, eh?

Good luck with that approach to government.

Are there any trolls who've taken elementary school civics here?