By doing the lying himself, rather than outsourcing the job to the assorted Swift-Boaters, McCain has set himself up for the blame when things go kablooey. He physically looks strained and uncomfortable when he is trying to portray himself as Our Savior From Wall Street. Like Nixon's five o'clock shadow on the TV debate in 1960, John McCain exudes body language that says "I don't really believe any of this". Too bad for him, but the stakes are too high for us to "Trust, but not Verify".

One is fun and gives you a quick high. The other is dull and boring, but it has all the protein.

Only one can be considered a meal.

No swing states there. And Ohio in 2006 had extra special corruption goo spread all over the Republicans. Today, 2008, here in Florida, and in Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina and Nevada (and Indiana, Montana, Arizona, North Dakota) conditions on the ground are different than 2006. It's the economy, fella. When you see 50%+ majorities saying they trust Obama on the economy, that may be the real story.

But hey, nice try. Even if McCain were somehow to win all the states I've listed above, he'd still be short of 270 EVs. He'd have to take Colorado, because New Hampshire would leave him short. Giving McCain the states in parentheses above, if FL, OH, VA, NC, NV, and CO were each uncorrelated 50-50 coin tosses, McCain would need to run all six to win, one chance in 64. Yes, simultaneous statewide elections across the country on one day will not be uncorrelated, and yes, if there's a real systematic shift to McCain in the next week, he can win. It's what the Republicans have to pin their hopes on, realistically. But you have to agree it's a long shot.

it's best not to sensationalize. In the atmosphere, methane chemically interacts, mostly by oxidation, to form CO2, on a time scale of around 12 years. So while it is a very strong greenhouse gas, it needs constant replenishment if it is to augment CO2 in raising global temperature. Replenishment via a positive-feedback loop is therefore the central issue, and in that vein, there is obviously too little study to date.

The flip side of this sensationalization warning is, because there's more study needed, it is equally irresponsible to dismiss methane as a significant hazard.

the folks up in Michigan must be lazy good-for-nothings that only leach off the domestic automakers because of the cursed unions. Have the Senators gone into the plants and talked with the workers there? Nowhere do I sense a commonality with the workers, despite our shared citizenship, our human connections to family, community, and country.

I sense a regional and parochial fixation among these politicians, as well as the obvious partisan and ideological coloration. They are willing to gamble with literally a few million jobs, a few million families, and further gamble that such a loss of jobs would not push the economy past a tipping point into a hopeless depression. This because the seem to be unable to be Americans, and human beings, first.

If the argument goes that GM is too far gone already, what is called for is bold outside-the-box thinking. Why not forcibly merge GM with the Silicon Valley green car company startups like Tesla, and combine the economies of scale that the Silicon Valley people obviously need with the radical redesign thinking that GM obviously is lacking? And make the Silicon Valley people the top management, because it's ideas that have real value in the long run.

Certainly strong for Best Actor, and the whole film was so tragic yet uplifting. You can't see this film without awe and amazement. A big miss for Ms. Zacharek here.

Claims require proof, otherwise the claimant will be viewed a crackpot. At least a degree of evidence would be better than broad brush accusation - in this case that Obama seeks to perpetuate a plutocracy. "Kleptocracy" (presumably "A society of thieves") is not really a recognized word, and is unnecessarily polemical.

It may come to pass that the (not yet existent) Obama Administration will do favors for Wall Street at the expense of Main Street. Or the reverse may happen. This guilt-by-association of the present appointments strikes me like what was said about FDR's appointment of Joe Kennedy Sr. to clean up stock speculation - yeah, Kennedy was a wheeler-dealer before the Crash of 1929, and he turned out to be the best person possible to do the job.

Let's let real actions determine our judgment, what do you say?

my bad - I stand corrected. Cheap dictionary I have.

Put Steele at one end of a big room, put Sarah Palin at the other. Then let in the press. Where do the cameras and microphones and scribblers go? Uh huh: moose juice.

Steele could try and draw attention by pushing the party's current anti-Obamaism further, but what would that gain him in his stated goal of making inroads in the Northeast? Alternatively, will the Republicans' Congressional leadership try and back-stab and undermine Steele if he goes all soft and, say, agrees with the Republican governors? I don't see common ground where Steele can make the R's look pragmatic and solution-oriented while the Hill critters (especially in the House) have settled on being the Army of "No".

while McCain less so. Evangelicals voted (and worked) enthusiastically for Bush while I suspect that Sarah Palin was McCain's ticket-punch. If Palin becomes the R's nominee in 2012, the evangelicals will again be enthusiastic, and then we'll really get to see an apples-to-apples comparison of their power over time.

That said, if Palin is the nominee in 2012, I suspect the number of red states could be counted by the fingers of one hand.

to include a simple disclaimer that the present case has not been adjudicated, and that there is a presumption of innocence and the state must prove its case, et cetera.