Anonymous:

Health care or another disaster on the scale of Katrina under a President Clueless Ron Paul would make Bushco look competent.

That's no mean feat.

What can I say? Man's got talent.

Or he knows the lyrics. Or something.

Don't think it's dancing with the stars, though. Howling under them, mebbe.

I smell a rat. Maybe it always works this way, but I don't think so. These guys are part of the General Petraeus propaganda push heading into September. They use the same words, it gets picked up by all wing-nuts and enablers. They made a deal like this: We will push "the getting better all the time" advertising campaign, if you refer to us as critics so we can recover some of our reputation after the last 5 years of war porn reporting.

It's like the heavenly days of Cheney on MTP and aluminum tubes on Page One of the NY Times!

JBinMO:

I support a third party because neither of the two mainstream parties have platforms I support. I don't want a continuation of the current policies reguarding the war on terror (republicans), nor do I want socialized healthcare (democrats) and those are the choices.

In America, the police, the fire departments and the water departments (mostly) are socialized. Health care--even for seniors--is not, unless you are a veteran.

A single-payer system with multiple private providers is not socialistic. It's efficient.

But if you're so deluded that you can't understand this, then you certainly belong in a third party, where the damage you do will be limited.

Pandyora:

In a perfect world, every american would join in a reasoned national dialogue in which evidence and our collective good judgment would guide policy.

O’Hanlon was trying to participate in just such a conversation. It is not his fault that both the Administration and the Democratic Party were more interested in playing politics than getting the policy right.

Oh yes, those terrible Democrats who wanted to go after the folks who attacked us on 9/11, instead of overthrowing their hated enemies.

Those terrible Democrats who wanted to work out an Arab-Isreali peace when a prime opening existed, rather than further inflame tensions that threatened both Israel and ourselves by polarizing the Muslim world.

Those terrible Democrats who clung to quaint notions in the Powell Doctrine.

Those terrible Democrats who wanted to let inspections work.

Those terrible Democrats who wanted to abide by international law.

All that terrible, terrible politics that St. Michael O'Hanlon tried to save us from!

Anonymous:

And were Lincoln's Republicans really so different? Ready to fight an unpopular war to impose a more civilized way of life on people who don't really want it?

The South started the Civil War, not Lincoln. It wasn't unpopular (check the elections). Bush has no intention of imposing a more civilized way of life on Iraq. And the war was fought to preserve the Union. Emancipation only became an issue over time.

In thrall to evangelical fanaticism?

There's a difference between being inspired and being in thrall. Those in thrall can't see this, of course.

Suspending habeas corpus?

As soon as we are in a case of rebellion or invasion--as the Constitutional allows, and as we were during the Civil War--then there will grounds for considering suspension of habeas corpus. Until such times, the analogy is false.

Claiming expansive new executive powers? Violating the Constitution at whim?

Lincoln did neither. He was extraordinarily restrained in the face of such widespread rebellion. But you seem to favor the John Wilkes Booth version of history.

Better trolls?

Anon:

Third-party voters are only "throwing their vote away" until they're not. America has had one very successful third party, the party founded in 1854 largely on a single issue (slavery). It currently holds many seats in Congress and controls the White House.

We live in a two-party system by virtue of our electoral rules, but this only creates a strong presumption of endurance, which is why the Democratic Party has survived since the beginning, while the second party has had three distinct incarnations. In each case, it was the demise of the previous party that enabled a new one to take its place. But calling such an emergence a "third party" is historically misleading.

Taking a close look at how the Whigs died, you'll see that in 1852, there was a true "Third Party," the "Free Soil Party" which was, in a sense--but not quite--the nucleus around which the Republican Party soon coalesced:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_elections%2C_1852

Then in 1854, the American Party (the anti-Immigrant "Know-Nothings") surpassed the Whigs, while the newly-formed Republican Party came in fourth:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_elections,_1854

By 1856, the Whigs were gone, the Republicans were second, and the American Party was a distant third:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_elections%2C_1856

And in 1858, it was the Democrat's turn to fragment, allowing the Republicans to control the House with less than a full majority among six factions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_elections%2C_1858

This shrank to the Republicans, Democrats, Unionists and some independents for the next three elections, and from there on we were back to having "true" third parties whose numbers remained marginal.

In short, for a third party to really matter electorally, one of the existing parties has to dissolve. Traditionally, it is the party opposed to the Democrats that does so. (If you can call two times a tradition. But, hey, the Republicans can call zero times a tradition!)