My first thought was to one of the last South Park episodes I saw. The parents all get very concerned that their children will be molested. Then they discover that most children are molested by people they know. The solution: send all the children out of town to fend for themselves so they won't be surrounded by people who love and care for them because those are the most dangerous people.

I assume the word "before" is missing from the 2nd sentence?

Anyone have a good link for what her research was? Something more detailed than what's in the article? There is scant information there.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Vilsack the first to announce he was running? I'm not saying others wouldn't have, but isn't this comment a little ironic?

Are you crazy. It's 7 a.m. and I can think of several problems with this right off the top of my head.

1) Arbitrarily delaying the start (and the money gathering) gives an advantage to those in office. E.g., Hillary could could collect money for her 2012 Senate re-election and magically funnel it into her presidental campaign four months ahead of time.

2) Having a national primary means someone has to run national on single day, which means everyone needs $100M+ right away. There is no chance for someone to build a la Bill Clinton. This cycle, it may be that someone like Edwards can focus his more limited resources on a few early states, win a couple, and gather more money. The problem is, he'd have to do it quick since the primaries keep coming.

3) Since you'd have to raise $100M in 4 months, this favors "name" candidates like Hillary.

I think sjb's idea is much better, it allows someone to gain momentum based on (we can hope) IDEAS. The only thing I'd add is to change who goes when from election to election.

Ok, background briefings bother me enough, but having an official White House transcript of a background briefing is beyond the pale. This is just ridiculous!

I was just listening to "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" from a couple of weeks ago. They had Snow on and he claimed it NEVER got personal between reporters and him.

Right....

Since now reporters who ask questions are expected to have a fully worked out plan for Iraq, the next step is ordinary citizens who want to express any opinion must have a fully worked out, published plan for solving the mess in Iraq.

The producer of the movie won an Oscar. Normally, the actors in the best film get to say very little, if anything at all. That Al Gore got to talk for as long as he did was out of the ordinary, but it was a unique movie.

But please don't say that Al Gore won an Oscar.

Reading this, I got a sense of deja vu from the Godfather.

"Well, these two cappos told me it was important we take care of this guy, so I assumed the boss was all behind it. But I never asked nothin' so as far as I know the boss had nothin' to do with it."

While Mr. Keillor does a nice job of associating Bush with an extreme stereotype of Calvinism, he's lacking on "nuance." Just like our president. Although I must say I am impressed that he knows what TULIP stands for.

First, Calvinists have not typically used their theology as an excuse to do whatever they want. Quite the contrary, really.

Second, it should be pointed out that it is the "thank-you-Jesus-for-making-me-beautiful ... megachurches" who buy into this whole nonsense of Bush being appointed by God. The churches with a Calvinist background, Presbyterians (Scottish) and Reformed (Dutch) are opposed to many of this president's policies and rhetoric. From what I can tell the Presbyterians more-so, but neither group would be considered "loyal Bushies."

So, this smear on Calvinists is no more relevant than using a "Bush on a Crusade" mantra to smear modern day Catholics.

when there has been virtually no organized effort by mainstream churches to oppose the actions of the right

Exactly. Mainstream religion, on the congregation level and above, pretty much stays out of politics. Their members do not. Isn't that what we all want?

Nancerich,

You should probably stop making assumptions about who I am or what I believe.

Except that I said no such thing. My original points were:

a) that Garrison's explanation of what Calvinists believe was wildly off the mark of what they actually believe and how they let those beliefs influence their lives.

b) the inference (which I think he made) that Calvinism as a theology/religion somehow supports Bushism is mistaken.

Why, oh why, do we have to keep hearing about how things were going great in Iraq before the Samarra Mosque bombing? Why does no reporter call them on this? Bush said the same thing during his "interview" with Charlie Rose a couple of days ago.

That bombing was just a marker on the downward spiral that has been Iraq. Things did not change direction then, just accelerated downward.

"It's been pretty well established that Atta met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague."

-- Dick Cheney

"blow them [terrorists] all away in the name of the Lord."

http://www.baptiststandard.com/postnuke/index.php?module=htmlpages&func=display&pid=2518

If he meets *that* Lord, boy is he in trouble.

"blow them [terrorists] all away in the name of the Lord."

http://www.baptiststandard.com/postnuke/index.php?module=htmlpages&func=display&pid=2518

If he meets *that* Lord, boy is he in trouble.

Sorry.

I didn't read it all that carefully, but I didn't detect any suggestion in Franklin's prayer that God hated the Germans and would lead American's to a righteous slaughter of her enemies. And I certainly didn't see Franklin saying "Blow them all away in the name of the Lord, Amen"