You see, the very idea that there are such things as experts, or that we should listen to them, is an elitist notion. It says that some people know better than others, when we all know that every real American knows best. After all, we put a towel-snapping C-student frat boy in the White House, and look how well that worked out.

The author laments the fact that Abigail Breslin is going to play an American Girl character, Kit Kittredge. Unfair.

My ten-year-old daughter is a voracious reader, and loves the American Girl books, which have almost nothing to do with the American Girl dolls. She mainly gets them from the library, buys some with her allowance, and she's read at least 50 of them. Don't get your daughter the dolls; do get your daughter the books.

I strongly recommend the books, particularly the longer American Girl Mysteries. Read them with your kids; you might be surprised how much you'll learn about American history, or how progressive the books are.

Kit regularly debates her anti-FDR uncle about the value of Roosevelt's programs (he thinks they're a waste of taxpayer money, while Kit can point to all the relatives that they've helped). She wants to be a newspaper reporter, and manages to get an item published in her local paper about the condition of the kids in the hobo camps.

Samantha, who grows up wealthy in 1905, makes friends with the daughter of a servant, who winds up orphaned and having to work as a child laborer in a factory; Samantha finds out just how bad working conditions are there, and convinces her suffragette aunt to help fight for better conditions.

Felicity, who lives in Williamsburg in the 1770s, is the daughter of a Patriot shop-owner, but has a best friend from a Loyalist family. The actions of the Patriots are not sanitized, and a falsely accused traitor is tarred and feathered by a Patriot mob. When Felicity's own father is accused of helping the British, Felicity has to defend him.

I could go on and tell you about Addy, the Civil War era recently freed slave; Josefina, of Santa Fe in the 1830s, or the newest girl, Julie, a child of recently divorced parents in the 1970s.

Certainly there are repetitive elements; these are the spunkiest girls you've ever met, and there are too many annoying brothers. But I suspect that my daughter already knows more history than most adults.

McCain and Clinton are pandering on the gas tax holiday idea, and they are insulting the intelligence of the American people. Refusing to insult the intelligence of the voters is not "elitism", it's just the opposite. You either respect the American people enough to tell tehm te truth, or you do not.

First off, the tax in question is only 18 cents, less than 5% of the price of gasoline. But the oil companies are able to sell all the gasoline they produce at the current price, and we are entering the summer driving season, when the price usually rises. So, what will happen is that the price will go down at first, by less than 18 cents, and then the price will rise to eat up the difference, and the oil companies will keep the money. Meanwhile, there's no money to repair interstate highways and bridges. Alternatively, Hillary can try to impose her windfall profits tax to get that same money back, but of course the oil companies would pass along the expense to consumers again.

You write:

"First, Obama's negatives are the HIGHEST according to Gallup, Rasmussen, and USA Today."

That's easily demonstrated to be wrong.

Gallup's favorable/unfavorable rating shows Obama 58/37, Clinton 52/45. More people see Obama favorably, and Clinton unfavorably.

Other pollsters get similar results: Clinton has higher negatives, not Obama. For my sources, see

http://www.pollingreport.com/o.htm

http://www.pollingreport.com/C2.htm#Hillary

You, on the other hand, seem to be making things up.

... should worry those progressives who admire Sen. Clinton. Why has she become the darling of the right? Why does she have Pat Buchanan and Richard Mellon Scaife swooning for her lately? Limbaugh, at least, is open about what he's doing: he thinks that every vote for Clinton at this stage helps to sabotage the Democrats, by increasing the bitterness and extending the race. Maybe he's wrong, but he's placing his bet in a big way.

Back when she was emphasizing health care, she was doing us a service; her plan really is better than Obama's. But for the last month, she's been running a Republican-lite campaign, aping Bill Clinton's 1995 strategy for surviving the Gingrich victory: appropriate Republican talking points and Republican themes as a desperate survival measure, and triangulate, demonizing most Democrats as too far left.

If Clinton were challenging Obama in a progressive way, her campaign would be a service to the party. But if every word out of her mouth could have been said by John McCain, what's the point?