Ms. Paglia, did you ever hear anything from Palin that would give you any reassurance that she has any meaningful solutions to our many huge challenges? Or is it all about accents and Ayers with you? Among the things I do know about Palin is she couldn't give a shit about climate change, which coming from an Alaskan I find all the more stunning. Every time I saw her wear that polar bear pin, when on top of it she's opposed making them endangered species, I was infuriated.

Palin is a tool who was willing to spout whatever the handlers put in her mouth to say, regardless of its veracity.

No wonder you like Palin. Your piece has about as much substance as she does. I would think you're just trying to get a rise out of people like me, but that would be giving you too much credit.

Hey, Sarah Palin, here's a question for your beauty-pageant brain: How is skepticism about Trig's origins more egregious than your branding Obama a socialist, as you did at almost every campaign stop, even when you knew such an outrageous claim wasn't true? Your victim's attitude is ridiculous!

It wasn't how your Down's syndrome baby came into the world that bothered me, it was your selfishness in agreeing to run for VP only months after the birth of a baby with such major challenges, and then compounding the insensitivity of your choice by using your baby as a prop along the campaign trail!!!

The baby needed the loving care and attention of her mother -- more than you could give her while you were campaigning -- and a father or sister is no substitute for a mother!!! Don't tell me you were still able to do right by the baby -- as the brother of a mentally challenged sister, I am in a position to know!

It is incredibly disheartening that the same old Washington shit apparently will keep going, in spite of an economic calamity so grave it makes Hurricane Katrina look like a little beach erosion. The last thing we need are trough-feeding DINOs (like Daschle) undermining the argument that Obama's election really turned the page on the Reagan-Bush era of selfish greed. It is this kind of shit from the bad seeds that bolsters the Nader-style argument that there's no difference between the parties, and feeds into the mediocre work of lame reporters who apply such a false equivalency.

How does Obama intend to accomplish the really big things if he allows his case for major change to be sullied by the selections of revolving door politician-lobbyists to his administration? His declaration of "no lobbyists," no matter how well intentioned, looks hypocritical if not enforced and leaves himself open to criticism. The Bush-Cheney crime family did not create such traps for themselves because they never promised to be above-board. And in the strange way our media works, that consistency somehow comes across as more honorable than trying to do the right thing but having to backtrack.

Or did you think we forgot about that? You think you were such an awesome Speaker, that was one hell of a way of reaching out across party lines, Newt! Then you cried about having to sit in the back of Air Force One. You're pathetic, not to mention bipolar. So you're on another of your manic highs again where you think you're a genius, the only one with all the answers. But you're nothing but more smoke and mirrors and tax cuts. Find me one pothole that was filled with a tax cut!

You're so "bipartisan," Newt, you couldn't find it within yourself to find fault with your own party for its deplorable behavior of the past two weeks.

F all Republicans. Their definition of "bipartisan" is giving them their way. Obama made a good faith effort, compromising on the House package, and he got zero thanks and zero votes for it from those lock-step greedheads. Have we heard *any* shred of compromise on the stimulus package from those creeps?

I know I'm not saying anything new here. It just feels good to vent.

I'm a 40-year original series Star Trek die-hard but not a trained economist, so I did not pick up on those references. I was too busy noticing how the training was similar to what Spock went through in Star Trek IV.

In my decades as a fan, I never saw the "Federation" as a capitalist construct, but something more like an evolved socialism. The Enterprise crew isn't compensated in money but in "credits," somewhere between bartering and what we think of as money. In Star Trek's future, we will arrive at a more enlightened social compact sometime in the 250 years between our era and the mid-23rd century. Let's hope we can figure it out for ourselves, rather than hope we can run into some "Vulcans" with better ideas.

I kept imagining the GOP salivating at the ways they would have painted McAuliffe as a Clinton bag man and a carpetbagger. That's why I as a northern Virginian couldn't bring myself to back him.

Creigh Deeds may not be ideal, but for the GOP he is the guy they wanted least. I'm sure the Rethuglicans are pining for a McDonnell victory, so they can work the media for the party "comeback" angle. Let's watch as McDonnell tries to win with a vague, specifics-free campaign based on amorphous "values."