How can you say the labor market is improving? The actual number of unemployed, underemployed, and the unemployed who have stopped looking after two years, is almost 18%. The President is not being aggressive enough. At this rate we are headed for a double dip - "W" shaped recession. This country cannot sustain a situation where nearly 20 million people are unemployed, underemployed, or driven out of the job market. If necessary the government must be the employer of last resort. It's not just the economic toll I'm concerned about - it's the human cost of despair which manifests itself in child abuse, spousal abuse, divorce, abandonment and crime. People must be able to maintain the dignity of working and supporting themselves and their families, or the social order itself could be threatened with collapse.

Ghandi used to tell a story of a man running so hard he looked about to drop. A bystander asked him why was he punishing himself so. The runner said, "Do you see that crowd of people walking off in the distance?" The man said he did, but he didn't understand why that was important. The runner explained, gasping for breath, "I must run to catch up with them. You see, I am their leader."

Please, President Obama, start running!

I don't buy the excuse that Lieberman is just looking out for the insurance industry companies headquartered in Connecticut. Sen Dodd is also from Connecticut and he supports a strong public option. Joe Lieberman (the sanctimonious Saint Joe) is looking out for himself. He has been bought and paid for by the Health Insurance Industry to the tune of $1 million dollars in the last five years. Way to go Joe. Loyalty to one's paymasters is a priority over one's loyalty to the poor, demented Democrats who voted for you instead of Lamont. The Republicans who put you in office by voting for you instead of their own candidate (as suggested by the Republican Party) they knew you would come through for them, and you certainly have.

One of the most discouraging pieces of information to come out during the primaries was that Obama voted "present" 137 time in the Illinois Senate. No other senator ever got out of low single digits on "present" votes.

Obama seemed to be always guarding his rear. Not taking a stand was the less dangerous (cowardly?) way out of a controversial bill.

Unfortunately that attitude doesn't make for leadership, as we have seen in this dismal, disastrous mishandling of health care reform - a vital issue now facing the American people.

I hope there's still time for Obama to have an epiphany and change course and attitude completely. He must be willing to push ahead with a real reform bill, no matter what it takes.

That will put in place a vital social and economic policy for the nation, and set him on the road to being a great president.

I'm glad you still trust Obama enough to believe he will use this experience to change his naive trust in Republican "moderates" to work with him in good faith.

I worry that Obama is very stubborn about his determination to govern with bipartisan support. I hope I'm wrong, but there's a lot at stake and Obama has to transform his political ideology to acknowledge the world as it is - Republicans have no intention of doing anything that could help Obama or the Democrats to get anything done. Their aim is to destroy his agenda and his presidency. The Republicans really are the bad guys!

As for the two ladies from Maine, I'm not holding my breath waiting for them to do the right thing either. In the end they will bow to the enormous pressure the Republican leadership will put on them. Democrats don't seem to understand that the Republicans' strongest weapon is their deep and broad party discipline - that's something Democrats know nothing about.

After reading all kinds of opinions all of which included laying at least some (if not all) of the blame on the police officer, finally - at long last - you have the insight and the courage to get it absolutely right.

President Obama should take your advice. He still seems to think that making some kind of comment on the situation was the proper thing to do even though he couldn't have known all the facts and couldn't have had time to realize that his public comment could have a serious and negative effect.

I'm sorry, but that denotes a certain degree of arrogance that fails to recognize that even a President has to tread carefully on sensitive matters, and that it's possible for a friend of his to be completely wrong.

The Republicans are beyond help. They are in the process of further alienating the fastest growing demographic group in the United States.

They have shown themselves to be not only bigoted and mean-spirited, but politically stupid as well.

Now John McCain's daughter has her work cut out for her. She should let the wretched right wing die on the vine and she and the two ladies from Maine should lead a movement to rebuild the Republican Party into something that Thomas E, Dewey and Nelson Rockerfeller would recognize.