Sarah Palin crows about making the right choice in taking her Down Syndrome pregnancy to term. In other words, she exercised the right that Pro-Choicers want for all American women: the right to make the choice for herself, a right she would deny them.

Now Sarah Palin and her supporters are outraged, outraged! that she has no privacy. Well, thanks to the authoritarians, neither do we.

They truly are out-of-touch elites. They truly believe that they are different and deserve different privileges not available to the rest of us Terrorist sympathizers. Four legs good, two legs bad!

Without Glass-Steagall repeal, Bank of America wouldn't be able to buy Merrill Lynch, the only bit of arguably positive news to come out of this crazy weekend.

The problem with this argument is that Fox is only describing the end-game. What happened before that to affect the position during the end-game? Would Merrill Lynch and Lehman Bros. have found themselves in the position they are in, were the Glass-Steagall act still in place? Quite likely not.

Further, as others here have pointed out, BoA's acquisition yields yet another mega entity whose failure could be disastrous.

Our grandfathers knew what they were doing. They had just lived a disaster and learned lessons the hard way. Why do we so blithely throw away their hard-earned experience? Shouldn't the term "depression-era"--used as a talking point in '99 to indicate how quaint and antiquated this law was (like the Geneva Conventions, no doubt)--have been a dead giveaway to the foolishness of repealing this act?

This is only the latest example. So it was Fanny and Freddie, eh? Then why did Lehman Bros. fail? Why did AIG need to be nationalized?

But let's be fair. McCain did say once that the economy was not his strength. So lets turn to his strength, foreign policy. Here we can expect to find lucid analysis and policy statements. But No! He is just as confused here. Take for instance the disgraceful way he seems to lump the PM of Spain with such "baddies" like Morales, Castro and Chavez. Spain! A NATO ally! A country if anything more democratic than our own. (see http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters/361898, or click my sig. Then make sure you watch the video.)

This guy is so confused and out of his depth that he is dangerous. I'm not sure that Palin wouldn't be an improvement over him, albeit a small one.

...let me tell you about this great thing Al Gore is supposed to have invented: The Internet. Get thee to your computer and find thousands of pics of hot librarian types, most of whom would probably not ban books, pollute lakes, drive up our debt, and deny women the choices and opportunities she's enjoyed. Get it out of your system now!

Then come back up for air, look at what is good for our country, and vote accordingly. Cause if McSame/Palin win, this may be your last chance to surf the web for hot librarian types...

But there will be no pitchfork moment, unfortunately (I would favor guillotines myself). The crony capitalists have been ransacking the treasury for so long now it looks like SOP. And we've been financing this piracy through debt, so the average taxpayer still doesn't really feel the pain. Wait 'till we pay Scandinavian style taxes without getting any Scandinavian style benefits in return. Then we'll get the pitchfork moment. But by then these assholes will be gone with their loot, none of which will have trickled down to us poor slobs.

Still want to privatize Social Security?

When I was in the Army I remember an incident where our company's supply room failed an audit. The supply sergeant and his staff worked double-tides to repair the damage. He was later given an Army Commendation Medal (ARCOM) for fixing his own mess.

This is even worse. At least our supply sergeant did not enlist the rest of us to fix his mess. Here, not only are the Wise Men of Wall Street angling to get credit for fixing the mess they themselves created, they are proposing to do so by throwing nearly a trillion of taxpayer money at the problem! I think even I could solve this crisis given that much money and dictatorial powers!

This is a dangerous time. What is happening here is one of Naomi Klein's Shock Therapy moments. Not everyone is thinking clearly and the Wise Men of Wall Street are using the urgency of the moment to try to stampede us. If Democrats don't ditch their pusillanimous ways David Brooks' wishes may well come true.

McCain is using the moment solely for political gain: McCain and friends present their unworkable plan full of ideological hobby horses: suspend capital gains taxes; suspend regulation; etc. It then (predictably) gets tossed into the rubbish heap. McCain then resumes his campaign claiming distance from the unpopular president from his own party, and blaming the Democrats for "ripping off the American Taxpayer," even though the reason we need a bailout in the first place is to fix a problem created by his favored policy of deregulation.

This is pure politics, with not one iota of leadership. Will it work?

How can it be that the Republicans have fielded such poor candidates for president? How could this man, so obviously unfit, have made it through the Republican presidential primaries? The last 8 years had, so I thought, prepared me for anything. But the mediocrity of the Republican field of presidential candidates (with the exception of Paul, whom establishment Republicans dislike), and the bumbling ineptitude of the eventual nominee, is stunning. McCain, president? Really? And the thought of a Palin presidency is just, well, incomprehensible. I've heard it equated with a bad Disney movie: Hockey Mom becomes President!

How much lower can the GOP sink? And yet, according to the latest polls, fully 45% of the electorate firmly support this crew. Amazing.