Without sexism, Palin would be nobody. Her looks and sexy charisma are what draw the crowds. The shoes she wears demonstrate that she knows her legs are her fortune.

Had Ayn Rand had those legs plus a Christian Woman image, she could have been president. Poor Mike Huckabee--without the legs, he doesn't have a chance--even though he gives a pretty fun speech.

Agree about Levi-Strauss, but as for much of the rest, it's obvious that Paglia listens to talk radio. The Denmark trip, the non-trip to Berlin, oh please! The first was an annoying political maneuver, and the latter was smart, considering that Merkel made the day about Gorbachov, not our Reagan. Two blips, inconsequential.

Like most analysts and the democrats in Congress, she frames the health care debate as concerning the uninsured. From there it becomes a problem of reforming health insurance. Groan. From there, a bill is doomed, no matter who "wins."

Think outside the box here. Insurance--reformed or not--is not the solution, it is the problem. Countries with excellent and universal care do not depend on insurance. And they do not depend on the generosity of employers, who should have to attract talent with competitive salaries, as Wall Street does. "Benefits" provided as an employer package are mystical to employees but ultimately ungenerous and inefficient.

Granted, it's politically impossible to dispense with the current system immediately, but that should be the long term goal, and current reforms should aim that direction, not at juggling the interests of for-profit health care providers. Instead, we continue arranging the deck chairs on this Titanic.

Perhaps this means the Catholic Church, avid among Hitler's "willing executioners," has given up, at least for the duration of the War on Terror, its war against Jews.

That is not too far from the plan Rep. Cantor presented at a Town Hall. Sell all your stock and real estate, he said, and buy medical care. If you can't come up with enough, you'll then be poor and able to apply for Medicaid. Before all that goes through, you can go to ERs for interim help with your, um, cancer or whatever.

Hey, You People who don't care a whit about JA: please understand that Fortini isn't writing about YOU, she is writing about the multitudes who make this woman so rich and powerful.

And she isn't expressing HER opinion about Aniston; she's musing, sometimes using irony, about numerous Americans' view of Aniston.

I agree with her musings and think this says a lot about how hard it is to escape gender expectations. It fascinates people, even after 40 years of women's "liberation," that a woman can be childless and unmarried, yet still have it all. A disconnect!

Don't worry Salon readers, I'm not talking about YOU.

The issue is not Wilson, it is not health care reform. it is illegal immigration. The issue should be discussed vis a vis health care reform, sure, and the nuances and complications addressed. But that hasn't even begun to happen, and it won't as long as we scream at each other about Wilson and civility and whether Obama is lying to us. If that's as far as this discussion is going to go, then we've missed the point (AGAIN!).

Look, if they are here, illigal immigrants should receive a certain amount of health care. There are too many contradictions in denying it. For example, you can't accuse them, as Pat Buchanan does, of spreading deadly diseases and at the same time, refuse to prevent or treat said diseases.

You can't claim to worry about costs when you relegate any group, illegal or otherwise, to emergency room care rather than sane, preventative or early care.

If illegal immigrants are here, health benefits are not the problem, and arguing about these benefits is avoiding several real issues we should deal with.

The most correct post here is the one noting that the MSM (and the posters here) seem unable to report adequately on what is true. The steak isn't being described--only the sizzle. WHAT is the GOP language that the democrats reject and, most important, why do they reject it? What are its implications in practice?

And if illegal immigrants receive emergency care under the law, why is it better to keep them in that, most expensive, kind of care than to have employers cover them?

And why isn't this enforcement begun before any illegal immigrant ever gets to needing health care in this country? Why will doctors, hospitals, etc. be the ones to enforce?

Isn't the point that they shouldn't even be here? Whose fault is that?

This has been said a million or more times but remains relevant: this is not about fetal deaths. Children and infants die because social safety programs like health care access are opposed vehemently by the same forces who fight against choice. Children and infants die in our wars. Children and infants die because they and their parents do not get dental and preventive care, and the prenatal care their mothers need.

Many ideologues can compromise and recognize nuance on other moral issues--priestly pederasty, for example, or collateral killing in war. But those things don't relate so closely to a woman's self determination and sexuality. That is what this is about.

Always was, always will be.

Your grim summary may be incomplete. What the Supreme Court decides regarding campaign finance could turn this whole shebang over to the corporatocracy, entirely, once and for all. Then we'll see some real czars.

Please, please, please, House Dems, do NOT do this. Please, please, PLEASE.

Rep. Wilson, a true Authoritarian Personality, is quick to do as his handlers say.