But I think if progressives are disappointed it is because when someone says they have to be president to "all of the people" we always seem to get served last. Maybe that's what it will take right now, just to return public policy to even a semblance of sanity, but it's particularly galling when progressives are told to be patient when, in fact, if we hadn't been so completely ignored all these years, we would not be having to perform half of Obama's policy list. No crazy-ass war to extract ourselves from, therefore hundreds of billions of dollars for fixing infrastructure and health care. Energy policies are 20 years or more behind the times, etc.

It's frustrating that eventually reality always forces the world to be shaped toward outcomes long predicted by progressive thinkers, yet powerful forces fight like hell against ever actually listening to what progressives are saying and actually accomplishing something.

Example: 20 years from now, or even less, gays will be getting married as they wish, and everyone will be wondering why we ever spent so much time and energy worrying about it. Gay marriages came to be, and absolutely nothing bad happened. What silly twerps people were back then! You know, the same way people today can't believe there were colored water fountains, and segregated everything just a few decades ago.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof... (cont,)

Wow. It simply could not be stated any clearer than that. There is no gray area, no ambiguity or anything to parse over in it. DeMint is a moron if he thinks otherwise.

It says: You leave my religion alone, I will leave yours alone, including your right to not believe a thing. Leading off with these words quite clearly says no matter how anyone believes, for all questions concerning how this country will be run, we will refer solely to the document we are now creating.

The visitor center is not "left-leaning," it is factual and correct. Jim DeMint is incorrect. Any action taken to incorporate his perception will be wrong-headed and incorrect, and a violation of the first amendment.

This is not a fucking Christian nation. It says so, right in the FIRST fucking amendment.

Thanks for your comment on my earlier post. I agree that Obama should be given a chance to show what he can do before critiquing his performance. But my post was mostly about the character of the American nation, not Obama. He may have been elected, but I think that the American people remain largely stodgy, dull and unimaginative. They may have voted for change, but they're idea of change is along the lines of a dieter who builds their weight-loss plan around getting the small order of french fries with their value meals instead of the medium or large order of fries.

Don't you feel it, the vibe of the nation? Even now, can't you feel the great inertial mob mind hoping to go back to sleep as quickly as possible? Obama could be a great leader, but I think he's greatly misunderestimating (to borrow Bush's term) the electorate's tendency toward complete lethargic apathy. "Oh, you mean we have to stay informed and work for change on a local level? Fuck it. Let's just keep things as they are."

When Bush spoke with Charles Gibson, I was, as I have been for years, completely baffled that this hollow shell of a human being, this nothing, this prevaricating, smug, self-congratulatory moron, could have convinced people to vote for him over and over.

In the last election, even after eight years of disastrous governance, it still wasn't enough to keep, what, 46, 47? percent of Americans from wanting basically the same sort of governance to continue. Sarah Palin pops up on the scene with her snark, and her wardrobe, and her 'You Betchas! And suddenly the only thing wrong with America to them is that crybaby liberals were standing in the way of 'Drill, baby, drill'ing our way out of all of our problems.

Obama should have his chance to show his stuff, but we are still the nation who stood by stupidly as Bush lied us, not even skillfully, into a war that has taken hundreds of thousands of lies, voted him back into office in spite of his proven criminality and incompetence, with the death toll continuing at a sickening rate — but insists that we are a moral nation because we remain steadfast in denying gays the right to get married. If only we could summon that kind of moral outrage for dropping bombs on people, but no. That just doesn't seem to bother us much somehow.

All these years later, and he is STILL running with the "If only there was any slightest shred of evidence to the contrary" angle. I knew there were no WMDs, and I didn't have the benefit of a single presidential briefing, yet Bush still insists he was the victim of faulty intelligence.

When I heard Bush on the news last night, and I understood why he was president for 8 years. He's the perfect president for America. He's a giant self-powered inertia machine. He can't be moved, just like America can't be moved. Even now, far too many people think our problems in Iraq stem only from "implementation." But it is exactly Bush's brand of blind arrogance that Americans see as central to our national identity.

Have things changed under Obama? Have we learned any lessons at all. I can't say that I believe that at all. The Bush interview was instructive. As a nation, he is what we see when we look in the mirror.