This comment is really beyond stupid.

"is what happens when a person contracts measles etc and heals naturally in a few days. They are immune for life. Over time, the immunity spreads through a population, so fewer and fewer contract the disease and, of those who do, the intensity lessens. Death rates decline, approaching zero, and in time the disease ceases to be an issue."

Diseases don't just go away from a population because individuals develop immunity! This comment is beyond wrong - it's illiterate. If it were true, there would have been no flu epidemic in 1918. After all, individuals had been developing immunity to the flu for millenia, therefore the flu no longer existed.

In reality, not only do individual humans develop immunity, but viruses and bacteria mutate. And new strains develop which are not affected by the antibodies that were fatal to their ancestral population.

And sometimes a new strain evolves that spreads like wildfire.

It's also true that, since antibodies are not transmitted to progeny, that each generation needs to develop its own antibodies. This can be done the easy way (vaccination) or the hard way (disease). Thus far, the only path that has led to the eradication of any diseases has been the former.

Simply sitting around and hoping a disease would go away of its own accord is a laughable strategy deserving to be scorned. If real human lives were not at stake here, perhaps this idiocy could be tolerated.

Actually, in this case it is. Bunning is senile, and that's not just name-calling. KY just moved from "easy D pickup" to "in play" with the Republicans having a built-in advantage in a very conservative state.

hey, idiot. Where do you think that Obama was born? And why do you think your random ruminations should be considered more authoritative than official documents certified by the State of Hawaii?

You're not advancing any argument. You're advancing unquenchable doubt. It's typical of vestigial thinking. You believe in unfalsifiable propositions and refuse to believe in unverifiable proposition. By which I mean there are whole areas of thought where you've decided that you're just not going to consider any evidence whatsoever.

And that's why we all think you are stupid. And yes, it's entirely appropriate to ridicule somebody who is arguing such nonsense as what you are saying. Not all ideas deserve equal respect.

very weak.

So your thesis is that Gates shouldn't be so uppity? This is a man who specializes in police profiling, and ends up the victim of profiling himself?

Doesn't he have a right to be angry?

The idea that this isn't about race because it's about class is absurd.

and drawing the wrong conclusions...

The polls have consistently shown that Americans want health care reform. The public is losing faith in Obama because he's not trying very hard. The same polls show that approval ratings for the GOP congressional delegation is below 25% of the population.

Really, the math isn't hard here. Don't work with the people who are wildly unpopular. Do what Americans want you to do.

And stop listening to Bill Kristol talk about 1994. There's a reason the Republicans keep talking about 1994. They haven't had a good election since then.

It's a shame that pundits, esp. liberal pundits, are constantly overreacting to the latest polls. Though I have to agree that the opposite approach, continuing to live in a fantasy world where unpopular ideas are treated reverently, is not terribly appealing either. Sadly, the people in the latter world have a disproportionate amount of money.