Way too much emphasis on highway construction. Is it for maintenance or new highways? Here in CO we have a huge maintenance backlog. Every mile of new highway will require higher outlays in the future for maintenance. Why do they never factor this in?

Also, new highway construction us just a gift to the likes of developers and WalMart, who must be salivating at this honeypot. These are the people who have given us the decaying urban sprawl and big-box retail landscape that we are stuck with today, and they should not be rewarded or encouraged to continue their rape of our cities.

This money could be far better used on investing in mass transit and commuter rail.

I'll certainly second your tendency to be a little mean to the Boomers. I was born in '73 and I am a sick of their moldy cultural narratives as much as any Xer.

But I think you are actually far too nice. The idea that Boomers were all hippies dancing naked in the mud at Woodstock, smoking pot and protesting Vietnam war is just another one of their false narratives. Of course all that happened but it was a tiny minority that had any connection to it, nor did it have much effect in the long run.

I am not a big fan of analyzing political trends with a generational paradigm, but I succumb to it too so here's what I think. The reality: Boomers were the generation that elected Reagan twice and spawned the "culture wars" that are still festering to this day. They are the ones responsible for setting progressive ides back 40 years and counting. They have been compared -- and I think it is an apt metaphor -- to a swarm of locusts devouring everything in its path. Big box stores, materialism, urban sprawl, reactionary politics, shallow invective masquerading as political vision and hell GW fucking Bush is what we got from the Boomers. You pointed out yourself that they elected Reagan twice.

Not that there weren't a few good ideas that came along the way -- and a lot of the music stands the test of time. But even here, Boomers ruined classic rock radio -- they tend to suck the life and vitality from everything they touch. They are almost totally oblivious to anything past 1976, and are responsible for their own share of travesties. Captain and Tennile? Carole King. Bread. We choke on it to this day!

Their narrative is typically self congratulating and superficial. We live in a Boomer nation, and I for one am happy to see their overbearing narcissism withering away into irrelevance as they die off. You want to know why progressive ideas have been banished to the wilderness for 35 years? Talk to a Boomer.

...on the "loser" part. People like that make hard to resist the temptation to gloat.

Reading the letters posted about this review almost makes me ashamed to be anti-war.

I am reading a lot of “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin”-style arguments about the nature of forgiveness and tsk tsking Bayard’s supposed bloodthirsty cheering of the war in Iraq.

You hippies need to put out the patchouli incense and work on your reading comprehension skills. Nowhere in the review did Bayard voice the slightest bit of support for the war in Iraq. And being against the war is not contingent upon “forgiving” al-Qaeda. He pointed out a central flaw in the logic of the book’s conclusion that you apparently can’t handle: “forgiving” al-Qaeda and not retaliating against it would neither stop its terrorist attacks or precipitate a reconciliation between it and the west. It is beholden to a radical ideology that would never allow these things. They want capitulation, not rapprochement. And it is explicitly anti Democratic. Say what you will about its brutality, the al-Qaeda radicals do not mince words on these points, unlike our own feckless political leaders.

Whether al-Qaeda should be “forgiven” or not is a discussion for ethicists, philosophers and religion. Bayard is right to call bullshit on such utopian idealism invading a book that ostensibly deals with concrete real world practicalities such economics and theglobal monetary system.

One does not have to “forgive” al-Qaeda to be against the Iraq war. Moreover, if you forgive al-Qaeda, then why not forgive Dubya and his administration for its lies, its corruption, the blood on its hands from the war? I certainly won’t forgive either one of them, and I don’t see why I should. I believe my position to be moral, logical, liberal and anti-war.

And who in the hell are you people to “forgive” terrorists who have never harmed you personally, for murdering 3,000 more people you’ve never met? That sounds presumptuous and rather stupid to me. Just vapid philosophizing.

No, I think most of the letter writers here excoriating Bayard are just doing it in a vain attempt to score some cheap ideological points. You disappoint me. You’re not even attacking the right target. Save it for Little Green Footballs, not Salon and not this review.

It's a good thing you are not working on McCain's campaign. Is that the best you can do? For a second there I thought you were being sarcastic, but I doubt it.

I have to disagree with you on this one Mr. Leonard. Bernanke and Paulson are either incompetent or they are liars. I personally believe the latter. Even by the standards of the Bush administration, they have set the bar for dishonesty at a new height.

I cannot believe that the economic tidings that have been discussed and argued about endlessly over the past two years completely passed them by on the umpteen occasions they have testified before Congress, gave media appearances and interviews, etc. You give them too much credit.

They should both be fired at the least, and preferably be in jail for their gross breaches of the public trust. But I'm not holding my breath.