...which pundit / columnist / blogger / whoever it was who suggested back in the ancient times before the 2004 election that we run on the narrative that this article's headline suggests: the Repukes are all phonies, fakes, imposters.

They pretend to a common touch that they have to put on, to conceal their privileged backgrounds and lives.

They talk tough and swagger to cover the fact that most of them never even put on a uniform, let alone put themselves in harm's way, as they ask hundreds of thousands of other Americans to do.

They prattle on about getting government and the "elites" off our backs, while they put that same government into our bedrooms and our hospital rooms, and put big business on our backs.

They promise to give "us" back "our" money -- and then give US federal income tax cuts of $30 to $300, while our state and local taxes go up by MORE than that to offset the loss of federal funds -- AND our payroll taxes go through the roof. Meanwhile, the top 1% get tax cuts of 30 to 300 THOUSAND dollars.

The Repukes are phonies -- and every normal American hates a phony.

THAT's a story that the "Reagan Democrats," the "Security Moms," the "NASCAR Dads," all the consultants' favorite voter-flavors-of-the-month can respect and get behind. THAT's a winning narrative. It even takes a leaf from the Rovian playbook: don't attack your enemy's weak spot, attack their strongest spots.

Why won't our side use it?

The intersection of religious belief and politics is one of the most important places where political change is fostered or held back. One of the reasons that some pols, voters, and pressure groups that would normally be expected to be hard-core against stem-cell research are not only not against it, but often strongly in favor, is that to the LDS (Mormon) church, "life" does not begin at conception, as it does to RC and most Protestant denominations. (It clearly doesn't begin at birth for them either; I'm not quite sure where they put the line. Maybe you have to check the label for the expy date.) That takes a good slice of the soi-disant "culture of life" vote out of the anti-stem-cell funding cohort -- and helps explain the tortuous "reasoning" of the Bush administration on the subject.

It would be helpful if Salon were to address this. Of course, it would also be helpful if our Democratic "leaders" were more aggressive and effective at exploiting this -- and many other -- potential fracture points in the Republican coalition. Wedgie, anyone?

""we have streets where those who have lived for years can no longer understand the signage over the shops...

You're very assumption belies that you've learned anything at all about America..."

-- jeffrey

In New York, and other larger cities, there have been neighborhoods for well over a century where the signage has been mostly non-English -- Chinatowns, Little Italies, and Lower East Sides (where Hebrew signage was the norm). We seem to have survived these outrages.

Jeffrey even recognizes ("a national unity based on culture and language - itself based on a masala of culture and languages") that the multiplicity of languages, peoples, and cultures from which America has grown has been a source of strength to the nation.

So why should we feel threatened by another wave of the same types of immigration that have fostered our cultural and economic growth in the past?

Oh, and Jeffrey? Someone who writes "you're" (the contraction of "you are"), when what you mean is "your" (the possessive), is not in a great position to judge others for their lack of English fluency. Or is your point that anyone who knows English LESS WELL THAN YOU is not welcome here?

...to be repetitive and boring (let alone annoying and causing my blood pressure to increase) I generally find something else to do with my time.

I've never really understood people who, having found something to be a waste of time, then choose to squander EVEN MORE of that precious resource griping about what a waste of time it is. See, I'da thought that would just compound the waste of time...

Clearly, I must be missing something. Can one of you smart people explain it to me? As Ross Perot once said, I'm all ears...