I guess I am a bit left of you, but where I work I have usually been called "the republican". If the folks you work with are all on the left, you do not have to be much to the right to earn that title. But W fixed that for me. During his first primary, I said exactly what kind of president that SOB was going to be. No one has called me a republican since.

From the butt end of the turkey:His book "The Tyranny of Dead Ideas" will be published next month. His e-mail address is mattino@att.net.

Everyone in his group who has a book about to be published has to write an op ed the month before. There is probably a very complicated mutually beneficial agreement that makes it happen. And it does not hurt to get on several of the MSM news talk shows, or whatever.

The President was hired by the taxpayers, and the taxpayers have every right to know what the hell he's doing and saying (barring anything, of course, of a genuine national security nature).

So I have no right to know what my government is doing about security?

Perhaps you mean that there are some things that need to be kept secret. Let's not put too much behind that veil.

I think that there is a real panic within the CIA that they might be run from someone who is not from the inside. (The evil lefties are trying to prevent anyone from inside getting the post, implying: therefore, Mr. Obama, to fight this, you must appoint someone from inside.) Coverup, sure; what has really been going on, we do not know.

This is one of many instances where the president-elect faces a choice that is dictated by his view of what his administration will be. Some extreme possibilities are:

1. a spineless mediator controlled by existing government agencies.

2. a strong executive directed at providing power and wealth for his friends.

3. an organization applying the rule of law for the people.

The choice of CIA director and its justification will be one of many indicators as to where the country is headed.

wrote:

....In his administration, it was Internet technology. If Gore had become president, it would have been green technology. In the Bush era, largely by default, home mortgages became the major investment opportunity.

No, not by default. It happened because the regulations were not there. The need to regulate "anything that acts like a bank" as a bank was understood. What you call a "major investment opportunity" was really a scam, and as always, those who started it made fortunes, and everyone else lost.

I hope that Angie does not have as big a long-term impact on the world as quantum mechanics has.

I am more than a little surprised at the lack of outrage here at the possibility of Hayden's continuation. Yes, it is just a rumor, and not as likely as earlier ones, but this is Hayden we are discussing! For me, his appointment in the middle of 2006 was the final act in bringing the CIA over to Uncle Dick's side. How could one possibly keep such a person on? The symbolism alone is enough to destroy any promise of change, never mind what he might actually do. He is not someone Obama can control, or even exert any influence over at all if he "appoints" him in this way.

If this turns out to be true, I would have to reassess my evaluation of the PE's intelligence. This appointment would just be a disaster for him, kind of like branding an upper case "W" on his cheek.

Effective regulations do not accumulate like water filling a bucket. You cannot draw a line close to the bottom and say "this is enough, all additional regulations are bad". So when you imply: "it was not lack of regulations because we already have more than enough", you perhaps are describing some alternate reality, but certainly not the world we live in.

I was very impressed with Adm. Huston, and would like to thank him and the other officers involved in this effort.

The democrats in congress are mostly useless. The US citizenry still seems mostly asleep. I think we need help from abroad. That is where most of the opposition to the continuation of torture is. How do we get at least one million folks from the rest of the world to write to Obama?

Yes, it does. I guess Moyers is smart enough to understand the opportunity he gave you. Well done.

(being on a trip and having trouble with internet access where it should not be so), I am struck by one remarkable thing (call me crazy if you want) between the updates and the comments (the few I have read): Nancy Pelosi and shooter have very similar ways of hiding the truth from themselves. This does not bode well for Obama's relationship with the congress.

The general question of the effectiveness of the threat of punishment is irrelevant. The fear of prison is very real for the kind of people who get to the top in our government. Send a few there, and this kind of stuff will happen less often.

Did the Lewinsky mess cause their downfall? Or was it the other things? None of these people was worth keeping around.

Cheney is reminding everyone in a very public way: if I go down, you go down with me.

I say take them all down.

It would be unlike Cheney to tell anybody everything; so I agree. He could tell them well short of everything, and still leave them complicit, and so there would be no fine line to draw; complicity was achieved well short of giving away the whole game. I guess he left them suspecting, but not knowing, that he had access to every communication they made.