Has anyone noticed the preponderance of innocent sounding peans for Fox? 'Fox had the only fair coverage' etc.,. Its really quite funny, but they're doing so poorly these days because of allying themselves to the Bush Shipwreck, that they're even trolling Salon for viewers. If there's one thing that this election does that is positive, is bury the infuriating senseless conservative rhetoric that has passed for political analysis from the right wing.

Yes Joan, leave it to the 'professional studiers' of Asians to point out the obvious.

I've made a decision to only watch the news every other day now to not get bogged down with non-stories like the Hillary is broke meme. This is like watching a baseball game where the commentators are saying, "the ball is in the air. My god, the ball can fly." and then two seconds later, "the ball is falling, no one could have predicted this amazing turn of events."

bleh.

Salon, as usual yellow-bellied in its Israel reporting--always a non-Salon writer, never a real critique, but a ham-handed 'existentialist dilemma'piece. Heaven forbid that someone write about the genocidal summer of 2006 from the Lebanese perspective. The 1,000 real, and not existential, deaths the millions of bomblets left to disfigure and kill for another generation. Seriously, what kind of inhuman nation kills so effortlessly only to direct its remorse at itself for having bloodied its hands? Besides us Americans, that is.

The most tragic thing in this world is that people like Straussberg are given a means to advocate their fast food drivel. At no point was this man ever able to adequately defend anything he had written. And just to point out, there are people who DO go out and risk things for their belief and go against the grain--that is why there is an anti-war movement and a environmental movement to begin with.

Is what you should call Paglia's column. Literally, she watched MSNBC, FOX, and then HBO and wrote an essay about what she saw. Not particularly insightful, either. Has she ever really listened to Hannity, Limbaugh or Ingraham? For being conservatives first and Republicans second, they have typically liked everything Republicans do, and have, funnily enough, rejected real conservatives like Ron Paul. The only thing they've ever (and I mean EVER)disagreed with Republicans on is immigration, and that was mostly for show--as a way of trying to jump off the Bush ship before it sank. Really, really superficial analysis, not worthy of anyone's time.

But perhaps the most egregious thing was the Revenge of the Sith analysis. Despite being one of the best of that latter trilogy, its still one of the worst movies ever made, almost unbearable until the last ten minutes--which is then ruined anyway by Lucas' tone deaf film making.

Most people hate her because she's stupid, not because she disagrees with them.

Those who think Obama is going to provide change, need only look at his behavior towards this FISA bill. He did not lead on this issue, did not even mention it. If he is half as popular as he seems to be, he could have galvanized followers to deluge their reps phones messages, but he didn't. Not a peep. And even more cynically, he voted for Dodd's ammendment, and then didn't stick around to vote against the bill itself--he was one of only three Senators who didn't. One of those was business as usual Hillary Clinton. Now he can claim to have voted for the progressiv amendments--as he has in a recent press release--without risking the career staining no vote that would have enabled his centrist critics. Does anyone need to guess how he would have voted on IRaq if he'd been in the senate? Use your head's people; it's a shell game.

Is that the best you can do? A sneeze from Sean Hannity would be more caustic.

I want to be careful here, so I'll say I actually voted for Obama. The only reason is because he'd be the first non-white president. I would have voted for a woman too, as long as it hadn't been Hillary, and its nothing about her personally. That would just mean back to back dynasties for two decades and that's just an ugly precedent to shake. I'm currently taking a natural selection approach to voting. If we select for candidates who seem to have some of the characteristics we are looking for and we are conistent about it, then someday, we will actually get candidates who really do have those characteristics.

That being said, there are literally no differences between Clinton and Obama. There was nothing more pressing than voting on this bill. Legislation is like a disease, easy to stop as a bill, but once metastasized into a law, very difficult to undo. I don't believe that anyone will have the clout to undo this; the new FISA will probably be permanent. If anything, I think Obama's action was even more unctious, in that it seemed more calculating, and because he has purposefully run his race as the guy who doesn't pull this kind of crap.

I will probably vote for Obama, but we have to keep our eyes open and looking forward. He is not Mr. Right, but he is Mr. Right-Now.

Retractions and kudos, the writing conveyed a basement level intellect, which is a compliment to your skills at sarcasm.