I'm not a liberal. I'm not a conservative. I'm not progressive. I'm not a leftist. I refuse to identify with any of these labels for one simple reason: I refuse to participate in empty rhetorical group think.

Ask me what I think about a particular issue, and I'll tell you. But none of these labels are issues as such, they are grab bags of issues, the contents of which vary depending on who you ask.

The word 'liberal', as others have pointed out, derives from 'freedom'. I find it more than a little ironic that those who ostensibly promote freedom feel so obliged to associate themselves with a group.

I didn't vote for Obama because he was progressive, I voted for him because he was centrist. He never pretended anything otherwise, and if you think he did, you are delusional. It wasn't my vote alone that propelled Obama's victory. I know more than a few erstwhile Republicans who voted for him as well, not only because the McCain/Palin ticket was too far right for their taste, but because Obama appealed to their centrism.

I sick of all the fringe lunatics out there trying to portray the center as bad place to be. On the left, we hear the cringing whiners desperately trying to associate Obama with the right wing zealots, bleating their sheepish battle cry: "center right! center right!". On the right, we hear their extremist counterparts doing the same thing: complaining about Marxism, Socialism, and any other ism they can somehow associate with the left.

Here's the deal. Extremists in both parties lost. The lunatic fringe, left and right is unhappy. Hurray! Maybe you guys can get together and form your own party; call it the Little Sour Pickle party.

After seeing the virtually identical headline for several days in a row, I'm convinced of several things. (1) The bulk of Salon's contributors don't have a single original idea in their head. (2) Joan Walsh is a bona-fide idiot (that has been obvious for quite some time). She is certainly incapable of attracting any worthwhile contributors (besides Garrison Keillor, the shining exception). (3) Visiting Salon is an abject waste of time. I cannot remember the last time I encountered even a dollop of insight in either the articles or the letters.

Goodbye. After all the fed-up can't-take-the-inanity-anymore folks such as myself finally leave, the floppy ducklings will have their own little self-reinforcing echo chamber all to themselves. Enjoy the illusion.

Two wrongs doesn't make a right. UAW wages and benefits are ridiculous. True, they are nowhere nearly as ridiculous as the wages we pay the white collar criminals on Wall Street and in the banking industry, but that doesn't mean the UAW doesn't have to bend before the US auto industry can hope to be competitive.

Oh for shame. Those poor UAW workers deserve the right to keep manufacturing covered wagons!

Take your medicine, even when it doesn't taste good. You'll feel better later.

FWIW, I agree with you. We have messes upon messes.

If you are reading this, then you will know what someone you don't know thinks about what HH wrote about a TV show about a Broadway musical about a movie about a couple of crazy old ladies in the Hamptons.

I think you must have something better to do.

My wife loves this movie. I'm a little worried about her choice of role models. I think watching a couple of fruity nut cakes parade around for a camera is rather sad, but acceptable I guess, as long as they didn't mind the attention. What I really don't understand is how such a movie became a phenomenon. Like an Andy Warhol painting or John Cage composition, its completely un-noteworthy but for its ability to cause New Yorkers to fall into their own belly buttons.

Your thesis would be more compelling if you had more than Alan Greenspan's limited apology to back it up. I dislike supply side economics myself, but I hardly think the battle has been won. Kudlow and his narcissistic ilk continue to preen themselves as they always have.

Call it denial, call it ignorance, call it what you will - but you can't tell these people that the party is over when they continue to sound the same themes they always have. As far as they are concerned, if the markets were just left to themselves, the mess we are in could have all been avoided.

No-one has assumed any responsibility whatsoever for this mess. None. Nada. Zilch. Indeed, the primary culprits of this debacle continue to line their nests with gold - at the taxpayer's expense, no less. This isn't even ironic, because the fault line has never really been about abstract economic theory; it's about our republic being subverted by the upper class. "Supply-side" is just aristocratic shorthand for "do it my way". Congress has implemented no new regulations. No-one has gone to jail. Nothing has changed at all.

Perhaps our new administration will put the screws to unmitigated greed and corruption. Perhaps public policy will someday reflect that our nation has overcome its infatuation with elitism, and instead values the hard work and insight of the working class. I'll believe it when I see it. Until then, victory celebrations are just a little smug.