Yup... ...elaborate, disturbing, and downright riveting. I am ashamed to admit that I was riveted by the slide show. I viewed it twice.

I need a shower.

W

Nick Turse has laid out Obama's path with such compelling clarity that, flat out, there can be no credible or defensible challenge. If Obama doubles down on Afghanistan, that decision will be one of rank malfeasance, not one of "alternate judgment".

I've been a very satisfied subscriber to Salon for several years, now. But not until this morning did I fully realize how dependent I've become on Salon's analyses.

Many thanks.

Oliver

Frankly, I find this Salon feature to be repulsive. After eight years of lies and spin, spin and lies, lies and spin and lies you offer up a platform for more of the same. It's disgusting. These WingNuts are disgusting.

Having launched "Afghanistan", Bush concocted of whole cloth a rational for... a lust for... Iraq; then promptly turned our military's attention to that wet dream. Afghanistan is now lost; it can not be won. Iraq, with the lid on, is dysfunctional and violent. Once our troops are out, it will erupt into unimaginable horror. There's nothing can be done about it. Iraq, too, us lost.

The economy is trashed. Our financial system is trashed. The FDA, the EPA, Justice, the FCC, and our other agencies are trashed, compromised by "christianization", cronyism, and greed.

Our borders are no more secure than they were on 9/11. Neither are our ports, our refineries, our airports, or our cities more secure. We are more dependent on foreign oil than ever before. The rich are richer, by far!, and the poor are poorer, by far!, than ever before.

And you want us to listen to the same kind of crap, now?, that Bush pushed on us for eight years?

The hell with you.

I've had it.

I won't listen to any more of it.

Bush, finally, has slithered under his gilded rock, leaving behind a fetid and foul odor which permeates every nook and cranny of this once great nature. Given time, that odor may dissipate. Until then, you do no one a journalistic service by shoving that smarmy and smirked moron in our faces.

Quit that "WingNut" column. Please. Quit it. My stomach can't take it. Neither can this nation.

Oliver

Gary.

I first read your post regarding Leonard Cohen when it was first published (04/17/09). It touched me as no column has done in a long, long time. It is an irresistible invitation to discover, or to re-discover, that extraordinary artist.

I've re-read your post several times over.

It's beautiful.

Thanks so much for your "Perfect Offering".

Oliver

Kamiya misses the point entirely. "Cold Dead Hand" gun-rights advocates argue not to protect themselves from street thugs and home-invaders. Rather, their fear is of out-of-control central government. The StreetThug/HomeInvasion argument is mere divesion.

Obama advocates gun registration, and bans on assault weapons and high-powered ammunition. Yet these are precisely the controls which most radically disadvantage the paranoid citizen.

For as long as the gun-control argument is couched in home-protection terms, Obama's proposals seem moderate. But seen in terms of the 2nd ammendment's 1787 intent, and Y2K's paranoid, they are decidedly radical.

We can cite Bush's rank cronyism, incompetence, and malfeasance, and we can cite Congress for abrogating its oversight responsibilities; but the ultimate check on governmental abuse is that of The Press. It is not, afterall, the First Amendment by lucky draw!

It is The Press which failed us. Lazy and stupid, The Press played stenographer to Karl Rove. That same attitude substituted "balance" for Truth.

Jerks like Klein cannot escape their responsibility for the wages of these past eight years.

That obnoxious fat-ass is supposed to an effective pitch-man? A stand-in for Joe Six-Pack? Are you kidding?

That guy's an obnoxious jerk... about as persuasive as a college sophomore expounding on Plato's Cave... an insult to work-a-day "Joe's" essential dignity.

What garbage.

Words matter. They matter! And "...tilt the Supreme Court" is about as irresponsible use of them as I've seen since George Bush last spoke.

There will be at least three SCOTUS appointments during the next several years. Vote McCain and they will all be "originalists", which means interpreting the Constitution in any way that satisfies the moronic ravings of the bigoted, sexist, homophobic, Christ-pandering religious right.

McCain won't tilt the Supreme Court. He'll push it over the edge of space, and the edge of time. It'll be decades before it regains its balance. Indeed, given the pernicious intrusion of Christianity into the affairs of state, it may never regain its balance.

Words matter. They matter!

To call McCain's debate bailout a "gamble" is to credit him with deliberative judgment on the matter. Nonesense!

McCain panicked.

End of story.

The bottom line to the Bio-Gay thing is that it is utterly irrelevant. Whether I choose another male for companionship and pleasure, or am compelled to another male, is no one's business. It's my life. My business alone.

Goldstein's pathetic urge to provide a biological basis for homosexuality demonstrates nothing more than the fact that he's still ashamed of who he is.

He may think he speaks for the gay community, but he does nothing of the sort. He merely prattles for his own sorry psyche. I'd sooner have Laura Schlessinger on my side.

Just watch the guy's pivots. Fed up with FOX News, he boycotts the network. They run the clock gimick and Obama caves. He lets himself be ambushed (Gee. I guess he didn't see that one coming, huh?) by Rick Warren, and just rolls over. Bill O'Reilly harangues him, and Mister Smiles gives that creep what he wants. Wanting to be a good guy, he hamstrings the 527's while McCain, & Palin, and the GOP deliver body slam after body slam.

The guy's a jerk!

Plain and simple. Obama's a jerk.

He seduces support, then refuses to fight for those who support him (me, included).

He deserves to lose.

We don't.