Readerreader below has perfected the GOP art of false equivalencies. Nothing the GOP does is ever wrong, but if it is, well, the Democrats are worse. Palin's ritzy wardrobe cost a lot? Well, the DNC spent money on the stage and stadium at Invesco field! So what? Was Obama supposed to speak on a soap box with no sound system and no teleprompter and no set of any kind? Was the stadium, designed for sports, not supposed to be refitted for a convention speech? Whatever they spent was a legitimate use of money for the convention and the campaign.

The wardrobe expenses for Palin are quite different because they undercut the Palin narrative of simple hockey Mom. And they show once again how tone deaf the GOP and McCain's campaign are. Think of the great PR they could have gotten if they'd sent her to shop for a few new things at Target or Mervyn's or Younker's or a store like that.

And Palin knows what a colossal goof it was, because she's fumbled with excuses like "the stuff is still on the plane unpacked," and she "didn't want it anyway." This last one is the Ted Stevens approach, so she's learned a lot from her mentor.

As for "fabulously wealthy," it's always bad when democrats have money but if one questions GOP money, you're waging class warfare. Obama is 1) not fabulously wealthy and 2) he actually earned his money by writing books, hard as that might be for some to imagine. He didn't ditch a crippled wife to marry an heiress who could further his ambition.

Organicas, do you really think people watching Maddow's show are likely to be McCain/Palin supporters or on the fence?

I think most of us viewers have been starved for an intelligent, unashamedly liberal voice on TV that's more measured than Olbermann's.

And one more thing it's not ridicule--it's satire that she does, and does it with prrfect pitch.

Joan, having read enough profiles of her on salon and elsewhere to last a lifetime, I can't feel sorry for her. She gloms on to mentors whom she turns against; she's totally lacking in humility and self-awareness ("I didn't blink"); she's unethical and dictatorial; given to cronyism; reckless in her use of inflammatory language in the campaign; and dishonest.

Joan: why did Chris Matthews treat DeLay's fulminations so gingerly? He let the man rant without pressing him the way he pressed Michelle Bachmann, and even worse, he praised his leadership at the end of the interview. It was very strange. Just when Matthews earns my respect, he seems to fold in the way he did with his man-crushes for Bush and Schwarzenegger et al.

Thank God the truth tellers are at work in these letters, warning us about hypnotism and even worse: Barney Frankism! Everything that's gone wrong in the last eight years is secretly the fault of that fat, Jewish gay Congressmen! Fat Jewish gay people want to control America! That's why they picked as their figurehead a skinny black straight man so nobody could tell! Prepare to evacuate to Alaska and take shelter with Sarah Palin!

Yes, I can cringe at how embarrassing the whole thing was, but I truly cringed because 1) why would she believe Sarkozy would call her in the first place? 2) her babbling how much she and McCain loved him was unbelievably immature and undignified 3) she has a tin ear because the first caller had an obvious Québecois accent 4) you could hear her bitching out her assistant for putting her on before "Sarkozy" was on--which means she thinks she's more important that the President of France! C'est dingue.

Okay, so her staff is getting contacts from "Sarkozy" and nobody bothers to mention this to McCain's staff? Wouldn't you think she would owe it, out of loyalty, to let her running mate know? Or even out of self-aggrandizement?

Here are some possibilities: a Palin staffer did and nobody took it seriously enough to get more information. Or Palin's staff did get advice to check out the call carefully, but didn't take that seriously. Or Palin, in her narcissism, didn't think anyone needed to know that a foreign leader wanted to speak to her. Or there were foul-ups in both staffs. Any way you slice it, it proves incompetence.

I've been sick of the C-in-C appellation ever since it started being shoved at us post-9/11 with Bush studiously appearing in front of ranks of troops while he wore some kind of military-style jacket as if he were going to lead them into battle. It's sickening, but Glenn, it may be too late to turn back if Biden and other democrats have had their minds and ears so corrupted that they use it, too, almost reflexively. I suggest you write to Biden personally--there's a chance a staffer will read it and maybe even show it to him.

Reading this reminded me of the goosebumps I had listening to Obama's Iowa victory speech, which seemed to me to be channeling Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King,and adding something new, something fresher and even more optimistic, if that's possible.

During the primaries, Clinton mocked his "one speech" and McCain has mocked his eloquence in the presidential campaign--but we need to be stirred and inspired to bring the country out of the darkness of eight years of Bush/Cheney, which has been a moral and political Great Depression.

"Pah!"? What is this, 18th century England?

And "cloth-eared"?

If the California State Supreme Court found an inherent right in the Constitution to marriage, can even a referendum deprive people of that right? Any lawyers out there, or people conversant with CA's constitution? Won't someone challenge the consitutionality of the amendment, and isn't the court already prepared to overturn it?

Heather and everyone else mentioning JFK and MLK, you've left out Robert Kennedy. Some of us came of age after JFK's assassination and encountered our first great visionary/humanitarian in him as well as King.