That's because most of these "critics" are drop-in Republicans who only show up to wreak havoc.

Keep it up with the Palin stories! She's the most dreadful VP candidate in living memory.

Do remember that there are two audiences here: subscribers/daily readers, and occasional drop-ins. For the drop ins, I think it's important to have a revelatory Palin story on the front page.

A message is sold by repetition. I'm perfectly willing to read 100 Palin stories, if by doing so we guarantee she doesn't get elected. I suspect that almost any non-Republican would do the same.

Keep it up! The heavy barrage of fake posters means you're doing something right!

...that was simply hilarious! I'm still laughing.

Keep up the good work!

"looking down from their Olympian crests upon the rest of us mere ignorant mortals as we stupidly think the wrong thoughts and time and again pick the wrong candidates for public office."

The trouble is that for the last eight years, Americans have picked the absolute, rock-bottom worst candidate - and this year, about half of them support McCain/Palin, simply the worst slate in my 40-odd years of watching US elections.

So yes, you are stupidly thinking the wrong thoughts. Yes, you do time and again pick the wrong candidates for office. And yes, you are too stupid to understand how far wrong you are, precisely because of the facts presented in this article.

Well, let's see.

Mr. Obama has degree in Political Science from Columbia and law (Magna cum laude) from Harvard. He's written several books; he's knowledgeable about the world, politics, science; he has a sterling voting record.

Mrs. Balin has a degree in journalism from the University of Idaho. She's never written a book or near as I can see anything else after college. She has yet to exhibit any knowledge about the world or politics. She believes God created the earth about 7000 years ago.

Republican troll, go back to your lair.

1. The vast, overwhelming majority of the troubled mortgages were given to white, middle-class people.

2. There is *no* "liberal movement" in the United States - unless you're talking about the Founding Fathers, who thought of themselves as liberals.

3. "Liberalism" does not mean "giving money to deadbeats" - that's your team. Liberalism means investing in the country, not in the rich.

Clean water? That's a liberal idea. Public roads? Liberal. Public schools? Liberal. Like eating food that doesn't kill you? The history books show that the FDA was set up - by a liberal - because the quality of American food was so notorious all over the world that they couldn't export it.

There are lots of countries which aren't liberal at all - places like North Korea Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan and the like. But places you might want to live are all liberal, liberal, liberal.

If there are any moderators: can we get rid of people like this? I appreciate a varied set of views - reading this racist crap is however simply annoying. We aren't going to get any content out of this person of limited reasoning skills.

thanks!

...you don't respond to trolls (particularly with obvious names like "The Screaming Steam Hammers of Hate").

This is a particularly good "story line". I/we do so hope that you aren't aiming at checking out, but you're doing a fantastic job either way.

They're going to keep turning it up.

Remember the proven voter suppression and the very likely out-and-out fraud in the last two elections? And that was when they were being careful. They might well be feeling that there is "nothing to lose" this time and go all out.

Expect clashes between people wanting to vote and the police; expect riots one way or the other when the results are released.

I believe that a real possibility is a slim McCain/Impaliner victory on paper but with such obvious and pervasive voter fraud that the country simply refuses to accept it. Anything might happen after that, anything at all.

If you start to read newspapers from other countries, you discover that shockingly enough, almost all the newspapers in the US have a conservative slant.

There are endless examples - pick pretty well any subject you like. Consider the war, where through most of the preparatory phase, more or less half of Americans were against the war - yet none of the networks and only a single major metropolitan daily came out against the war (and that in SF, which makes it an outlier in the US).

Only in the last stages of the collapse of Conservatism, when the literal sanity of the movement's leaders is coming into question, do the papers and TV finally start to question the madness that might already have destroyed this country.

I did get a sad laugh out of it.

As for the comedy writer - well, your letter wasn't funny at all! Come on, make us laugh! We need it - desperately!