"In the end, according to the standards of CNN's Great Debate, we were asked what we might possibly have in common. Shockingly, to me, Liz Cheney argued hard: Absolutely F'ing Nothing! I was hurt!"

Ahm, that's how they roll, isn't it? Don't most of us know that by now? And don't we go to bed every night praying that sooner or later the Democratic leadership from bottom to very top gets it?

Seriously...Salon, Media Matters, HuffPost, Digby, etc. etc. etc. You really, really have to stop going after Scarborough on the substance of what he says. Joe, his agents, producers, wife and children are all engaged in an intense rebranding campaign to make Joe THE new voice of the conservative movement..and more importantly a ratings grabber for MSNBC. If you think they don't sit around over Starbucks in their production meetings and plot all this out, you are utterly naive. "Hey, let's pull a Cramer and take on The Daily Show. I got it. I got it. Let's turn Krugman into a Jewish Malcolm X! No, wait, whataya think of a Michelle's a slut gambit? Gee do we have anything to back that up? Fuck substance, dude. Gotta keep them talking about USSSSSSSSS!"

If you're not ignoring it, you're enabling it, folks.

I think Joan perfectly projects a progressive mindset here that can be tracked from the pages of Salon to the halls of congress straight to the Oval office. It is that reason, patience, and respect for a take-no-prisoners opposition will in the end prevail. Some call this enlightenment; others know it by its real name: vanity.

Do I detect a noxious ageism permeating this review? Well, Woody Allen certainly set himself up for being pegged as a dirty old man for the rest of his life. And with 72-year old Silvio Berlusconi frolicking around his villa with naked 18 years olds perhaps this isn't the best time to come to the defense of May-December romances. But I can't help thinking of Starting out in Evening and Elegy, two recent films that at least made a reasonable case that very young women can find much older men attractive both intellectually and sexually. And then of course we have the classic reversal with Harold and Maude. Stephanie's problem here doesn't really seem to be with Boris's fossilized ideas, but the very idea of a young woman touching his fossilized body.

Progressive bloggers no longer have to make the point of what a wretched, hollow institution the Post has become. We don't need one more link to a crazy neocon rant to demonstrate that the paper is enthralled to crazy neocon politics. So how's about we just stop linking to it. Stop commenting on it. Stop allowing it to play a part in the internet discourse. In case no one's noticed, they need internet credibility far more than Froomkin needs their crummy insider's club.

Think Hiatt or any of the other Big Media Poobahs are watching what's going on Iran and getting even a clue that history here, like history there, can and will be made in spite of them?

Even you jerks. Seriously, there isn't another place on the internet where I find myself constantly surprised by the commentary. All the political commentary is so knee-jerk and Manichean. This column, on the other hand, is a often enlightening and original--even the jerks that show up here are jerks in their own unique way. And it all starts with Cary who has totally reinvented the advice column. I recently read an entire book on apology by an expert in the field, and I don't believe he ever once mentioned the concept of self-apology. It's sublime in its simplicity. Begin with a clear, honest assessment of your own fault ("through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault...") then move on to forgiving yourself for it. The rest is easy.