It's scary to think Cheney actually believes what he says. It's even scarier to have GWB stand up and say he's got the economy covered. Across the globe, financial markets look at that and say, "Shit, we'd better get into Euros fast. Or pesos, or any damn thing but the currency that fool has 'got covered'!"

Both having to do with water. Obama makes me think of the way a sailboat works, its ability to take winds that are blowing away from the direction it wants to go, but which by trimming its sails and understanding the physics of sails...can go wherever it wants and needs to go.

The other -- and this is what brought tears (water again) to my eyes during the speech more than once: I feel like someone who's been crawling through the desert, dreaming of water but finding none. Obama is an oasis that is not a mirage. After the heartbreak of listening to George W. Bush blather and posture and pose and lie and dumb down the national discourse for seven years, Obama's reasoned, informed, heartfelt and restorative words are literally like life-saving water to a parched soul.

God, I hope no one harms him.

Does Cheney own a dictionary? America lost its taste for this war years ago and has not FLUCTUATED since then.

"it would hardly be an exaggeration to suggest that a successful Olympics would partially erase the stain of 19th century foreign domination and imperial collapse that transformed China from one of the world's great powers into a basket case."

So, should we start planning the 2112 United States Redemptive Olympics?

"This is a government of international outlaws who have no understanding of laws, of decency, of anything other than the wielding of power."

Is that China you're talking about? Or someone else we know rather too well?

Let he who is without sin start ragging on the other guy.

You're entitled to your opinion, of course. Which is, I take it, that there's no such thing as hypocrisy.

Looking at Wright's video, the "God Damn America" one. Turns out he was being very specific in his condemnation. God Damn American for killing innocent people -- God Damn American for treating its citizens as less than human. When and where that does occur -- and it does, regrettably -- is there any argument with damning that behavior? I mean, what would Jesus do about the death of innocent people or the gross mistreatment of others? "Uh, Dad? Listen, you gotta do something about this..."

Okay, now Hillary has completely lost me. Obama disenfranchising millions? Who agreed, before the renegade primaries, that they would not count? This is crapola worthy of the Repugnican Attack Machine.

It's not just pot/kettle. The Chinese have never pretended to be a democracy. They have not trumpeted "Do as I say, not as I do," virtuosity to the rest of the world, much less backed up their sermons with bullets. No, we don't crush Code Pink protesters with cannons. In fact, we do far worse things, many of them outside our own borders, but many inside (jailing a huge percentage of our population because we don't believe in self-medication with certain rather arbitrarily-proscribed drugs, e.g.). And all the while, preaching to the rest of the world that they should -- must -- be more like us. How much do you know about China? Do you know that crushing a few protesters doesn't preserve a precarious stability without which millions would starve? I don't know it, but I don't know it isn't true, either. Do you? What we do know is that the USA is not living up to its principles. That's what should come first, then we can shake our fists at what WE PERCEIVE as horrible injustice in other countries.

Anyone who says flushing anything besides human digestive waste down the toilet is the best way to get rid of it is selling horsefeathers.

Is creepy. Unless it's a joke. In which case I don't get it.

If we want to get into right-wing political idiocy, we'll be here for the rest of our lives. It's a waste of time, really. But watching Hillary blatantly lie about her trip to Bosnia makes BO sitting in the front row of the Trinity Church dodging the Rev. Wright's flying spittle look pretty insignificant, IMO.

Again, that address: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It6JN7ALF7Y

So, "to misspeak" means "to lie without having to use the word 'lie' after having been caught out." Feh!

But strangely she (and all the politicians who adopt the newly-minted "I misspoke" to mitigate their outrageous acts of blatant dishonesty) tend not to "misspeak" in the other direction. They don't tend to speechify thusly: "It was a lovely arrival, with flowers and little children and a band playing..." and leave it to the press or the opposition to uncover the fact that there were bombs going off everywhere and that said politician saved three elderly nuns and a pregnant woman from certain death. It just never seems that "misspeaking" runs in that direction. Hmm.

"...the GOP establishment for years has tied itself at the hip to hate-mongering extremists along the lines of John Hagee, Rod Parsley, Pat Roberston, Ann Coulter, and all sorts of various Instapunks, with no repercussions or accountability whatsoever."

Is there any reason for that other than the full and enthusiastic cooperation of the corporate-owned, profit-driven mass media? No, none. It's the coverage, plain, pure and simple. Big Media is conservative, it likes tax cuts, it loves a war, it thrives best on simplistic arguments and viral tropes. That ain't gonna change until the corporate stranglehold is loosened.

It will be a miracle if Obama can get elected, not because McCain is a formidable adversary, not because the nation isn't bone tired of the neocons, but because the fat-cat oligarchs behind the MSM are terrified of him. To them, it's like Fidel Castro is running for president. They're not going to let it happen.