"I guess, kind of play even the campaigning media game that is played in just repeating, perhaps, memorized lines in a -- in an interview, that's not me..."

Right.

Repeating memorized lines is all Palin did throughout the campaign. It was when she strayed from those lines that she got herself in trouble. It was a lose-lose situation.

What else could she possible mean by "memorized lines"? Is it too much to expect our VP to "memorize" various facts about, say, the current world political structure? I mean, she was able to remember the word "fungible".

Ignorance is bliss, I guess.

I have to say, I hope Dean doesn't go for the senate. First of all, as a Vermonter, I really hope Leahy will stick around for another term. He is well liked here, and represents us well, and I think he is healthy enough. I think he, like many, look forward to working for the next 8 years with an Obama administration. If he choses not to run, the winner will be whoever he endorses.

I hope Dean takes a position under Obama - HHS or Surgeon General. I think one of these two appointments is very likely. Dean would suffer in the Senate - It is not the place for him. He needs a position where he can run his own show.

Obama has already displyed an great capacity to address more than one thing at a time. An investigation would only be distracting to the extent that the media is incapable of that same capacity.

That said, perhaps the most damaging thing that the Obama administration could do is to bleed out parts and pieces of various evidence, as they find them buried in the Bush archives. In the court of public opinion, guilt is often the presumption, and the right would be too busy scrambling to defend than to make trouble.

We are familiar with Republican-style bipartisaship. Now the Republicans need to get a little more familiar with it.

I have advocated for this in these letters sections ever since she dropped out. It is a perfect position for her temperment. SCOTUS, not so much.

There are plenty of people who could (and should) take over the Senate leadership.

I think this would be her chance to make her mark. Under her watch, I would have hope for the middle east.

True, it would probably be the end of her political career. But that may be how she wants it.

They reach across the aisle. They don't look for some lofty ideal. They look down low, to find common ground, common values, like the lowest common denominator. They aim for the bottom.

It's about values. It's about compromise. It's about working together.

It's about working together to compromise our values

Gas is down 30% from ths summer. Tax it now - Americans ARE willing to pay. Use the money for incentives for alternate cars/energy. Let the big three hang themselves - They have put the noose around their own neck as it is. The unions will find other work, in a newly formed, non-oil based economy.

The future ain't what it used to be

I feel like we can't even get there from here. Are the detainees prisoners or enemy combatants? Did Iraq have WMD's? Is Iran part of the "Axis of Evil", whatever that is? Are the Palistinians bad guys or good guys? How about the Israelis? Which votes can we count? Is being gay nature or nurture? When does life begin?

Our discourse has become so tangled up with shorthand and code words and blustering posturing and distracting minutia and incestuous myopia, that being either "pragmatic" or "ideological" about anything seems impossible.

In trying to strike a balance between understanding complicated issues, and simply telling right from wrong, we have done neither.

Who cares?

Hilary isn't looking for a $25 billion dollar handout from the Feds.

Monica? Really Elephantman? You are reaching now. She is as irrelevant as...Wait for it...Republicans.

He could appoint her. She'd be better as a SCOTUS pick.

When I was listening to the story on NPR this morning, They said that he's had been taken into custody, and then in a weird little aside, almost as an afterthought, but clearly read from some statement, they added "And he was going to be tested for drugs and alcohol"

Because, of course, the only reason somebody would do such a thing is because they were high.

Lead is an element. Lead pipes. Lead bullets. It's that basic. It's as elemental as our basic human nature. Sure, we're created equal. That doesn't mean we all grow up equal. There is natural tension between people who grow up different. That difference can manifest itself in the propogation and exercise stress-inducing situations. Hey, we're all under a little stress. The Arabs are stressing us out. The Chinese are stressing us out. The Russians are stressing us out. All that stress has to go somewhere. Is simple math, really.

And in the end, the cause of all death is heart failure. Y'know, naturally.

My mother gave me this nose. As a child, I thought it was big 'cause I picked at it. As a child, don't you think I wished it to implode? Yes so much.

My heart is good, but scars on my arms? Yes, from long ago. It's the death from a thousand cuts. It takes a long time to die.

Bush sleeps easy, so he says. Moral guilt kills who?