It means that everything, and I mean EVERYTHING must be filtered through the the poltiical approval process. Everything in life, from your choice of entertainment, your view on sports teams and what you eat, mut meet the Conservative litmus tests.

It is not sufficient to say that Donovan McNamm is either a great quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles, or just avery good, overrated, injury-prone crybaby (my opinion). If you are Rush Limbaugh, he is a symbol of "Black preferences". And therefore Conservatives must hate him and root against the Eagles.

If you are Conservative, what you eat, think and (especially) pray must be submitted to the Conservative thought leaders (Ann Coulter, James Dobson, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Rielly) for approval and communicated back to you through the 700 Club, The Wall Street Journal Editorials or FoxNews.

It is easy because independent thought is not necessary. But it is also difficult as a Conservative may not always know what (s)he thinks until word from On High comes through: As we see from John McCain when he is asked questions on items such as Birth Control Pills vs. Viagra.

Hope you don’t mind an outside observation… but I was struck as I was reading the article regarding similarities and differences in sports bras for women and men’s jock straps.

In the case of men, exercising also causes movement that can be very uncomfortable (most guys learn this the first time they try it without support). The bouncing that bothers women can be similarly uncomfortable when a man’s family jewels are similarly jostled.

In men’s case the solution has been compression and containment (fill in your favorite joke line here) to keep the guys from making too high g-force contact with the thighs. Of course, for men, we don’t have to worry about constriction limiting our ability to breath, since only our brains, not our lungs are located in that region.

In the case of contact sports, the hard cup is added to avoid those embarrassing roll-on-the-ground scenes that national television tries to avoid showing, but everyone at the stadium watches when a strategically directed hit occurs. Whether it’s because of limited female participation in high contact sports of the lack of such a need, I have not noticed similar additions to sports bras (not that I’m watching that closely, of course :-)

One thing that the Bush Administration has continually exploited is the "Goldfish memory" of both our news reporting media and, apparently, the American voting public.

By continually comparing what they are promising today to what they selectively pick from only the recent past, Loyal Bushies have managed to ignore conditions prior to the invasion or shortly thereafter.

John McCain is, of course, counting on the continuation of that tradition on the part of his Base. Given the vapid nature of most of our reporting journalists, as best exemplified by that Paris Hilton of pundits, Chris Matthews, it may be a smart move.

NeoConservatives have become impossible to parody. Their flagrant contradictions, sometimes in the same statements have gone way beyond anything even the Monty Python Troop could have envisioned.

When NeoConservatives start putting articles in the Wall Street Journal equating George W. Bush with Batman as a serious foreign policy analysis well... what more could one say?

But then, these are also the people who based thier prisoner interrogation techniques on what worked in "24".

Re: "...it would look odd for a paper like, say, the New York Times to print a story that's coming solely from the Enquirer."

Considering the Times' track record as stenographer for VP Dick Cheney's version of the reasons for the invasion of Iraq, I would say it is would be more odd for the Enquirer to quote the New York Times.

Re: "..which was the whole point of the surge, right?"

No.

The purpose of the surge was to buy the Bush Administration a year's worth of slack, so the mess could be dumped on another president. In that it has worked perfectly.

It is there.

The Republican Party has a permanent majority in several states such as Utah, Wyoming, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alaska (no matter what we hear about "closing" now) and others. There is absolutely nothing that a Republican candidate can do, represent of say that will get the party below 200 electoral votes.

The Democrats only have about 60 electoral votes so locked up.

It worked. As long as Richard Nixon's "Begnin neglect" regarding Conservative Racism and the federal $'s flow to Republican states, the majority will continue.

John McCain's support will never, ever drop much below it's current levels because at least 30% of Americans will never vote for a non-white candidate. Beyond that, Republican party loyalty is absolute, no matter what. So no registered Republican is permitted to vote for anyone other than Republican candidates, unless given special dispensation (such as for joe Lieberman in 2006).

This translates into at least 200 electrol votes as the Republican floor in any election. Democrats can count on no more than 100 such votes, and occasionally fewer.

That won't happen. During any run up to the political conventions, names are floated, officially and by those with an ax to grind. In the end, IMO, Barak will be fairly conventional in that he is likely to pick someone who is safe in that he (or she) has no major negatives, and the positive that will bring in voters on the edge.

That likely precludes anyone currently registered as Republican, or any of his opponents in the primaries. It will likely not be anyone in the Senate, both because the Democrats will not want to risk losing a seat when the newly elected VP has to resign and to broaden the choice: So one of the governors is likely.

John McCain will certainly take a similar track. However the Media (John’s Base) will declare how terrible it is that Barak is doing such a thing, and love and justify whomever Senator McCain picks.