You talk about the Ohio Valley, but you miss that there are TWO sides to a river.

Indiana's 9th and 8th districts, though the state is gerrymandered ferociously, have been close for years, and are set to advance to Glory!

In his second attenpt (two years ago), Mike Sodrel won the 9th from Baron Hill by ~1500 votes. He's a sleazeball of major proportions: a draft-doging Vietnam ChickenHawk, who has sucked up to Tom Delay at every voting opportunity (in exchange for the dirty money, never giving it back), who wants to destroy Social Security (to fund the tax breaks that he's sharing with Paris Hilton). He has declared repeatedly that the Social Security Trust Fund is "not worth the paper it's printed on" [so has W.] He's the smiling boss who steals your pension, personified.

John Hostettler, from the "bloody 8th," has barely held on in the past, thanks to his reputation as "the dimmest bulb in the house" [check out, for example, his weapons bust at the Louisville airport]. He campaigns on the "the Democratic War on Christianity." This time he's facing the Vanderburgh County [Evansville, another Ohio river town] Sheriff, and with only a 34% approval rating he's sucking pond water.

I'll leave it for someone else to discuss the 4th, or situation in Kentucky [AKA "the old country" for many a Hoosier family, including half of mine].

Obama may be engaging in happy talk to some extent, since it only takes one side to start a fight. But his record is clearly progressive. And give him some credit for this:

“I am not currently, nor have I ever been, a member of the DLC.”

www.blackcommentator.com/48/48_cover.html

I don't get this "oddly polemical" nonsense. The DLC is a corporate-funded and controlled front group which frequently repeats Karl Rove's daily talking points, to attack progressive Democrats. Their attacks on Howard Dean are only their most recent attempt to carry water for their corporate overlords. Why is it odd that someone might fight back?

You may not have noticed, Debra, but running the community and external affairs of the Obama movement is a much more important job than running the community and external affairs of the U of Chicago, now.

Do try to keep up.

IIRC, Greenspan responded to "irrational exuberance" in the late late 90's stock market NOT by raising the percentage that speculators must actually put down, in order to buy stocks, but by raising interest rates, and thereby taxing the entire economy. Was that a "Greenspan put"?

I thought it was just Republicanism.

I'll miss the WWN. I used it to teach my kids to read, on those long car trips across country. The world was a little brighter, with the weekly weird news along for the ride.

"We have no history of mushroom picking in this country"???

You must have somehow missed the Morel season in the Midwest each spring.

This is a great ad, If the election is still tight until May 6, the Lugar reference will play very well in Indiana.

It has been a common tactic for Limbaugh to use a sarcastic tone while repeating racist attacks, and then feign innocence when called upon it. That's not acceptable. You don't get to cackle about "stupid Mexicans" and then snort "Ha, Ha! It was a JOKE!"

Limbaugh is a professional, and he has no moral code to restrain him. He does not deserve the benefit of any doubt, and it serves no legitimate purpose to cut him any slack.

Her youthful [or whatever] indiscretions are irrelevant to the national debate, but her father's service to the Mafia, which led to the I-can't-count-my-houses lifestyles J Sydney McCain III enjoys, certainly is. McCain is still a principle front man for both Las Vegas and the Indian casinos.

This attempt to reduce Obama's popularity to Hollywood stardom, and his online supporters to automatons, is neither original, nor convincing. I suspect that Obama's legions will think for themselves, and act. With him or against him. We're not dittoheads. We're going to wait to see what happens.

The right wing is already blaming Obama for everything that's wrong with the country. Should the left also turn on him, before the inauguration?

"Let's hope Obama is not a second FDR since the latter's policies not only worsened the Depression but also prolonged it."

FDR was a pragmatist and an experimentalist. His policies during his first term helped tremendously, on the whole. After 1936, he tried to avoid deficit spending, the conservative approach [that he had run on in 1932] with catastrophic consequences.

Keynesianism was only then being invented. We have the advantage of 75 years' study. But scholarship doesn't decide goals.

The Conservatives have ruled for 30 years, and enriched only the already-rich, while wrecking the country with a collapsed economy, huge debt, war for conquest, the disgrace of torture, and greatly aggravated factionalism.

The opposite of everything Bush has done would noty be perfect, but it would be better.

How much do they charge, to be a research partner?

Nice work, Joan.

Under trying circumstances -- it was 2 to 1 against you, plus huge amounts of time devoted to replaying Cheney. I would like to see the times alloted to the different points of view. When the host cut you off to play another tape, you maintained your poise remarkably well.

The intelligence chiefs of the US military unanimously opposed the Bush-Cheney torture policies, as ineffective and counterproductive. The Geneva Conventions are part of the law of the United States. The Bush-Cheney administration has a lot to answer for. They should be given an opportunity to do so, in court.

There's no reason to use flattering images of those three miscreants. Use photos or videos that reveal their true nature.