When the idealism President Obama has demonstrated with his attempts to approach his opposition as President Lincoln approached his "Team of Rivals" must give way to the pragmatic realization that President Lincoln's "rivals" were of a far higher caliber, intellectually, emotionally, and psycholgically than the rivals with which Obama must deal.

Furthermore, every time one of Obama's opponents begins to rise above the standard tax phobic, ignorant, Neo/fascist Christian/Taliban leanings of his fellow Republicans, Rubaugh and the creepy, crawly denizens of weasel news demand that he or she drop back down into the muck and mire with the rest of them (the only place Rubaugh and the weaselites are comfortable). Rubaugh, Cheney, the little weasles et al, will allow NO meeting in the middle and NO cooperation of any kind.

Once President Obama realizes the impossibility of his dream of cooperation (which he may already have done), he will become a much stronger, more accomplished president. He will, of course, continue to reach across the aisle in congress, but he will also begin, either personally or through surrogates, to excoriate the opposition for suggesting no ideas except those that have already, very clearly, failed, and simply attempting to obstruct any progress the Democrats might be attempting to make in new and better directions.

I predict this approach will reach is peak as we approach the 2010 mid-term election. By then Obama will have given the Republicans so much rope and they will have so willingly wrapped it around their own necks, that they will, in their own uniquely ugly, unappealing way, campaign in ways through which they hang themselves with that rope from trees of their own planting.

The disappearance of Don't Ask, Don't Tell and the repeal of DOMA will arrive soon after.

has nothing to do with Jesus the Christ:

"As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." [John 15:9-14]

What part of the commandment to love do they not understand ((and no, "we're doing this for other people's own good (taking away their rights) because we love them" isn't any more true than "this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you" has ever been true)).

Don't blame Christianity for the sick, violent, and twisted actions and beliefs of those who use Jesus' name, but know nothing of how he actually lived or what he taught.

They talk tough whenever they're feeling sooooo scared and hope that nobody calls their bluff. Of course if we put them back in power, they'd use the U.S. military as they used their "friends" on the playground, as their own personal posse behind which they could hide, while those friends did the fighting and getting hurt.

In other words, they'd send American troops to be killed all so they could feel like big, scary, tough guys, themselves. Meanwhile, as history shows, when it comes to actually signing on to do the fighting and putting yourself on the line, they'll do what they've done their entire lives... run and hide like the worthless little cowards they are.

For you younger folks, Bill Kristol, et al = Draco Malfoy (and his father, Lucius, for that matter), and if you're in the military, they want you to be their own personal Crabb and Goyle.

It's a sad little psychological neurosis that, unfortunately about 20% of the American public shares with them, cheered on by the biggest, loudest cowards of all, Rubaugh and the creepy, crawly things that appear daily on weasel news.

The changes in the way college loans and other forms of aid were quietly structured beginning with St. Ronnie's tenure, especially the move to private lending institutions and unlimited interest rates on student loans, were designed to force hard-working middle class kids into indentured servitude to their lenders for at least the first half of their working lives.

It was the perfect plan. Provide incentives (bribes) to colleges so that their financial aid personnel would steer students into private lenders, even when cheaper options were available. Keep the entire system opaque so that students and their parents, being thankful to get financing at all, would not look too closely at how differently that financing was structured than it was when mom and dad went to school

Collect a healthy share of the income of those with college degrees for the next decade or two or three. WHAT A RACKET! The college students do all the work, get their degrees, find good jobs and the lenders sit on their figurative backsides and get rich off those students' hard work.