He's spent his entire career in the Senate lambasting government spending.

Well, except when a Republican president tells him it's necessary. Or when his Savings and Loan buddies tell him it's necessary. Or when ...

Are there any senators who don't lambast government spending one day and lavishly praise specific spending bills the next?

But the fact that it looks close is sweet.

She may just be counting on most of her base not understanding.

(And holy cow, am I ever tired of wingers whining about being oppressed as discrimination becomes ever-so-slowly less to their advantage.)

Make no mistake, if Obama loses, it won't be an act of God.

At this point all the McCain campaign can do is hope for a huge Bradley effect, wildly successful block-the-vote efforts or demonic intervention. I'd think that God wouldn't be involved in any of those.

(For whatever my opinion about that is worth, being a devout agnostic.)

This is a center-right country.

-- JimAK1

Only in terms of the oligarchs and their hirelings. The people themselves, not so much.

The Pelosi/Reid Congress is going to pressure Obama to move to the Left.

Heh. Well, Bush pressured me to move to the left ...

Her vote will count and perhaps somehow, in some sense, she'll find out the result.

Fingers crossed for the election tonight -- but even more work starts tomorrow, should we win.

Can I get an amen?

If Obama wins today, it is not the end of this story. It's the beginning. There's a lot of work to do and Obama can't do it -- and in some details won't want to -- unless we keep pushing.

"Yes we can" wraps up today. Tomorrow, "yes we will" needs to begin.

Question

Was is after Obama's short conversation with "Joe the Plumber" that they really started pushing the "Obama's a socialist" line?

It had come up before then, but yeah, that's when it started getting play. They've been push, push, pushing the "spread the wealth around" quote ... while glossing over the fact that they've been doing the opposite thing for years by concentrating more wealth to the wealthy.

But, but, but ... everyone knows Obama is the most liberal member of Congress. (Just like, coincidentally, any other Democratic nominee would have been.)

So what does all of that mean to Beltway platitude-spouters? As David Sirota noted earlier, it means (of course) that conservatism is as strong as ever, and that the U.S. is -- all together now -- a "center-right country" ...

At this point, that's deep into "clap your hands for Tinkerbell" territory. Seriously.

What matters in the long run is not whether or not there was vote counting fraud, but the fact that in far too many places it's impossible to prove either way. That's absolutely unacceptable.

This is certainly good news, and maybe I'm being nit-picky, but ... exactly how does AP calling it make it "official"? Isn't that the job of the electoral officials in the state?

I'm not Glenn Greenwald, but as far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing as an inexpressible view.

That said, if a professor shows by their statements that they clearly doesn't understand the subject that they are supposed to be teaching, then they should be treated just like any other employee. Give them a chance to improve their performance, and replace them if they don't.

If an engineering professor insisted on teaching engineering approaches that had been shown to be dangerous, I'd hope that the school they taught at would take corrective action. Likewise if a professor of medicine dismissed germ theory as not worth paying any attention to. Why should a law professor be treated any differently?

Sure, the law is generally more open to interpretation. But that doesn't imply a total lack of standards or basic levels of competence.

Before the election, John McCain and the Republicans depicted Obama as one of the most liberal senators in the entire chamber. Guess what? They were correct.

Um, no. They depicted him as "the most liberal Senator", except when they doubled down and tried to depict him as "the most liberal congressperson". Guess what? They were full of shit.

(More liberal than Bernie Sanders, self-described democratic socialist? Please.)

It was entirely predictable, of course. No doubt if Clinton had been nominated, they would have depicted her as "the most liberal Senator" -- which would've been even more guffaw-inspiring.

... helped bring us President-elect Barack Obama.

Also, someone mentioned that "it was clear" that Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" was an accident. I don't believe this to be the case. If she had not intended to display it, why would she wear an obnoxious nipple ring?

Seriously? Some folks do sometimes wear such things for their own private benefit.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN OBNOXIOUS NIPPLE RING....

Au contraire, some are designed to be obnoxious.

So I hear, anyway.

The racial categorization of Americans -- and people of the world by westerners -- has been one of the most poorly-explicated issues in the history of mankind.

...

I look forward with the greatest interest to reading Gross' book. I'm sure it will do nothing to dispel my notion that the majority of westerners -- and perhaps the entire human race -- is nuts, but it may at least give me some solace when I start feeling like some sort of weed in the garden of life.

While our categorizing is certainly egregious, I gather that behavior is not unique to westerners. Fear/suspicion/hatred of "the other" seems to be depressingly common in humanity.

Thanks for that, Mr. Leonard.

I suspect my own father would have been appalled at Obama's win and disgusted at my vote, but I like to think he would have been grudgingly glad I voted, even so.