For someoene engaged in "journalism", kelein is oddly vague about his targets and in his response to Greenwald. Given his obvious thin skin, Kelin probably doesn't want to provoke any more direct responses to his own work and does this by a faux "high road" version or evasion.

Being a "liberal" has been tainted for a long time and not just by conservatives. Any of us who lived through the heyday of tut-tutting "knee jerk" liberalism in the 70s has met any number of people whoare/were the liberal equivalents of the right wing noise machine. Many of us also watched with dismay as liberalism on an institutional and rank & file basis besically became a bunch of "college boys" who had only the most superficial and abstract approach to issues involvning poor or working class people. The rise of special issue liberalism in the 70s had much to do with this. I used taunt my feminist friends about their general ignorance of condescension toward working class women. Feminism fell off its economic rails very early and absically destroyed its links to women who had been looking to this movement for some salvation. Instead, the focus turned more and more to rhetoric and issues like abortion and pornography, which are valid but often were treatred with great disrespect to dissenting views.

My point here is that there are lots of ways to be a dissenting or iconoclastic liberal. My general annoyance with "middle class" issues and outlooks colors my dissent. I think feminists, enviornmentalists, and others have shot themeselves in the foot with their inward looking approaches to what should be mass issues. Liberalism also divorced itself from labor to its peril and, frankly, the peril of working people. It's only now as well paid professionals have become threatened that we see organized liberalism take another look at "working people".

As for Klein, his dissenting liberalism, like that of Richard Cohen and others, involves more of a non-desire to be labelled a liberal rather than coherent critique or competing philosophy. Whereas I'm a middle class professional with a PhD who enjoys lampooning the views of people who have gotten too insulated in their educated middle class world, Klein & Co. want the label of liberal, but don't want the responsibility that comes from it. They are a little like Alberto Gonzales, Claude Allen; they like being tokens, but they have no courage to do anything with their tokenhood. Primary Colors was an entertaining novel, but Kelein's journalism is a mess. the same could be said for Mickey Kaus or Richard Cohen among others. Their bad journalists and lazy writers, but they have their niche and they're not going to do anything useful with it.

Sorry to use a parody of a very old slogan for Certs breath mints. Bush's faith like most of his beliefs & personality seems crudely formed and shallow--Reagan without a brain. He's crafted his arguments in a way that have self-serving nuance, of sorts. God isn't telling him what to do, but he is fulfilling his part in a "Great Awakening". A serious student of religion should find this laughable, which may be one reason why the MSM take this at face value. Whereas Bill Clinton embraced a recognizable sort of mass consumption version of "positive" evangelical Christianity, Bush never got past "Bible Class for Idiots". Religion provides a balm and away for him to justify his behavior. The rationale has tended to be vague and impressionistic, and increasingly tortured in its logic.

The MSM's inability to recognize the obvious about Bush's religiosity is much like their unwillingness to call him a liar. even when the lies are truly obvious. Even people like Dan Froomkin are delicate around the "l" word. My guess is the media might discover Bush's inane theology several years after the fact, much like the discovery that Cheney is nuts and running the show.

I grew-up without a/c, but lived in a house surrounded by trees, with a small woods in back and a great lake half a mile away, and beaches nearby. Once we left the neighborhood, a/c would have been welcome and by August, I would wish that we'd had it at home. Once I was out of the house, my summers had plenty of a/c. Later, as a grad student and as a financially struggling assistant professor, I did without a/c. For awhile, I was fortunate enough to live near the Chicago lakefront, so I could take a short walk, catch a breeze or at least dangle my feet in Lake Michigan (you wouldn't want to do more given that southern lake Michigan makes even Lake Erie seem clean). I also enjoyed going to the movies, where I would run into fellow a/c-less acquaintances seeking cold air as well as entertainment. I also remember nights so hot and sticky that even with a fan, I couldn't sleep and days where a simple walk to the store had me drenched in sweat. Finally, I made enough to have an apartment with a/c. When I later lived in SE Asia, I discovered that the locals had sense enough to stay out of the heat and those who could had a/c. No one like the heat and people from the Tropics (or Texas) are the first to complain, just as they complain about the wimpiest of Winter weather.

I still relish breezy summer days, walks in Lake Michigan when I visit Chicago, and cool evenings in a movie theatre, but I am happy to come home to the hum and dehumidified air of my a/c. Nice try at wistful writing. Besides, there are plenty of other ways to be environmentally concious.