If these congress folks want to investigate how they are being influenced by Muslims, then let's widen the investigation to include how congress as a whole is influenced by bankers, defense contractors, or what have you. Yes, I am all in favor of investigating harmful influence on our congress.

In the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, Kas the Bloody-Handed was the most trusted lieutenant of the despotic arch-lich Vecna, who wielded the Sword of Kas in his master's name.

--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kas_the_Bloody-Handed

I trust his instincts, and his instincts say to gather more information and work with people who disagree with him to find a solution that works.

No, that is inconsistent with his actions regarding civil liberties. He has taken actions to preserve and extend what Bush did.

What, perhaps, is so irritating about THE Left's criticism of President Obama is its self-righteous-no-one-is-right-but-us tone.

Did you read Glenn's article? If so, why not respond to what he wrote? He has presented good reasons for criticism that you find irritating. Write something intelligent about what he wrote, and you will get some reasoned responses here.

We could have covered the entirety of North Vietnam with agent orange or worse! We dabbled in torture but could have used it much much more. How about a ten fold increase in conventional bombing?

These things (if possible) would have won the war? Talk about applying the village tactics to the country!

No, you are seriously deluded.

A. B.:

At home and abroad, the president who advertised himself as an agent of change will instead have inadvertently erected barriers to change. As for the American people, they will be left to foot the bill.

That bill is far more than monetary. Proceed with caution down the road to death.

...so the US will be even more dominant, more able to dictate terms to the rest of the world, more able to generate hate, more able to stimulate terrorist attacks, etc.

I am not saying I want nuclear weapons, but Lind's reasons for getting rid of them seem a bit cold-blooded.

Many people respond to the thought of homosexual acts with spontaneous horror and disgust.

Just how many is that these days? Let's see some numbers. If what you wrote is reasonable, I am sure you can find a poll that supports it.

Bystander: Maybe I should be quiet, too. Sorry, I cannot be.

But "this" is one of those things that indicates a new direction for US foreign policy and justifies the NPP. Oh, that is in a different parallel universe. It is hard to keep them straight on Monday morning.

Thank you, exactly my point.

However, the point is that authoritarianism reflects qualities of government not people.

Discussions about how the authoritarian personality is defined seem reasonable. Denying its existence and blaming it on the government? This is just another example of assigning anything that does not fit in with your personal beliefs to what you hate most.

From those comments Harwood "passed on":

that governing a closely divided country is complicated and difficult.

Is he talking about the actual people,, or does he count corporations as "persons" in this calculation?

I am puzzled by the claim that Rs and Ds had equal numbers of authoritarians twenty years ago. (Or did I get that wrong?) I would have thought that certainly from the time of Reagan on, and maybe well before, they were pretty well entrenched with the Rs.

You do not "upgrade" a war with no real discussion of why, what constitutes victory, or how you get troops out, and then deserve the NPP. This is what causes perpetual war.

You do not "upgrade" the Bush illegal powers that give the executive too much freedom to act and then deserve the NPP. This is how opposition to American military action is destroyed.

You do not continue the DoD policy of sending former generals to declare that public discussion of a war is bad, and then deserve the NPP. Listen to General Zinni on CNN declare that only your leaders know best; this is how propaganda is used.

When both sides are shooting at you, you are probably in the right place.

No, of course not. No matter where you are there is always someone on each side of you. It does not make you special, and it does not make you right.

Maybe he's just a hard-working president who is doing the best he can to balance all the crises he was handed on his first day in office.

Really? Then why does he make surface changes, but hold onto, and even try to extend, the illegal executive powers that W claimed?

Paraphrase: "It's great that Obama got the NPP, because lots of other recipients did not do anything for peace either."

Is this the kind of attitude that got slavery eliminated from nearly all of the world?

Could you even eliminate smallpox with this kind of attitude?

Perhaps it would be like this: "The Nobel prize in medicine went to Dr. Feelgood who has helped reduce the incidence of small pox in East Asia by .0275%. Those who claim that Dr. Feelgood has not done much should rest assured that that this prize will kick him into high gear."

If no one deserves it, then do not award it. That has happened before....when there was war.

Maybe it is time to stop bashing him for his failings and let him be great.

Let's "let him be great" before we give him the prize for being great.

Welcome back. Part of your comment was not very easy to understand, and probably requires some further explanation.

The warfare state has moved incrementally in the direction of welfare; so reward its president. Reward before performance does not work well when training dogs. Who thinks politicians are any different?