Two things confuse me about this:

One, isn't it a little late to still just be talking about it? It's already summer! How long would it take to propose and enact legislation to do this? Is this just a ploy -- promise something people desperately want, but that you have no intention of delivering, so that you can blame your critics when it doesn't happen?

And two, won't the success or failure of the proposal be known by November? If, as economists predict, it doesn't really lower prices by as much as promised, it'll look like a failure for McCain. Unless the gas companies intend to help McCain out by keeping prices low so that the "holiday" works... But that's just paranoia, right?

I guess Fox doesn't care about all the potential viewers who use this gesture in everyday life. If you were one of those viewers, would you ever consider Fox to be relevant or worthwhile?

I guess they don't care about that demographic.

A video I can't watch (at work) about a topic that doesn't matter.

Are you trying to make me go read a different site?

How many people understand how public financing works?

This seems like a hard sell for the GOP: "McCain is taking public money but Obama isn't." How many people are going to think, good for Obama, he's not taking our tax money and spending it on his campaign!

You can try to explain it, but that visceral first reaction is going to linger, the same way Obama's middle name still provokes a reaction no matter how good an explanation there is for it.

And how good is the explanation, ultimately, anyway? Aren't thinking people on the right vehemently opposed to artificial limitations on wealth in the name of making things "fair" for everyone? If he can earn more, he deserves to be able to spend more, right?

Yeah, I'm enjoying Carpetbagger more and more. Since you reminded me to check over there, I just took a look, and it's almost like Steve's reporting on an alternate reality where there's a lot more going on... Like Scott McClelland's testimony about Rove this morning.

People threaten to leave Salon all the time because of perceived bias, or the trolling in the letters, etc etc., and that all just makes me shrug. But today I feel like Salon has left me really uninformed. It's disappointing.

...if they can kill the bear without using any weapon other than, say, a big knife.

THAT would be a trophy!

Is the K Chronicles in color on some other site?

Didn't this make the rounds about four months ago?

"Comics are more conservative than you think"

I don't really agree with that statement. Of course, you can find examples all over the spectrum -- Frank Miller immediately comes to mind. And they were certainly a lot more conservative in their early years, up to and including Marvel's Silver Age (when Iron Man and the Avengers seemed to battle commies every few months).

But even the Hitler-punching flag-wearing Captain America has repeatedly clashed with his own government since the 70's, including a thinly-disguised Richard Nixon stand-in running a secret criminal group. More often than not, the government and the corporations are bad guys in comics, whether it's hunting down mutants or operating far-reaching conspiracies. And just look at the X-Men, a franchise that practically wears its liberalism on its sleeve.

I'm surprised that you found Civil War to be sympathetic to the pro-government point of view. I know Marvel claimed that both sides had equally valid points, but the way the story was written, Iron Man really came off as an evil fascist. If that was supposed to be endorsing the pro-government side, then the writer didn't do a very good job.

Same with "Watchmen." It's directed by the guy who turned historical Persians into giant nipple-ringed homosexual monsters for "300," so.....maybe he's found his calling.

Frank Miller, the comic book creator, is the one to blame for the nipple rings. And if we see Dr. Manhattan walking around in Watchmen with his blue schlong hanging out, that won't be Zack Snyder's fault either.

At least he's faithful to the source material.

Fluff like this is why I'm reading Salon less and less every day. This story maybe deserved to be a one-line mention in a 'daily roundup' feature (like the ones on Carpetbagger).

I'm becoming convinced that the content here is no longer worth the subscription cost.

Does John McCain have a plan to bomb their country in a way that burns off their restrictive clothing but leaves them unharmed? Or does sympathetic Sarah feel that blowing them up would be merciful? Let's ask the thousands of innocent Iraqis who were 'collateral damage' in the last war about the appeal of Bush/McCain-style 'freedom-bringin'...

Andy Martin, the anti-Semite who was a source for one of Sean Hannity's specials about Obama, has retracted his earlier smear, when he said Obama was a Muslim; he now believes Frank Marshall Davis, a Communist, is Obama's real father.

Wait, Communism is genetic?!?

...at least quote enough of his article to get the point across.

The four paragraphs you quoted, which are about six times as long as your intro, fail to explain what you set up in that intro, namely, "why [liberals] should be cheerful if McCain happens to win."

I'm not about to go read his entire column to figure out what he's talking about.

I just want to say, I am very impressed by the calmness and dignity that the Obama team brought to this campaign.

They're not entirely innocent of negative campaigning, but overall the Obama campaign did a terrific job of running on their own guy's merits instead of relying on fear-mongering and slime. He talked to us like adults, something that we've been starving for, for the last eight years of Bush administration rule.

I feel inspired that a majority of my fellow Americans have seen through the bullshit for once.