There is one thing Bill Ford and other executives of labor-intensive American corporations could do to restore profitability while actually doing social good: provide political support for a Canadian-style single-payer health insurance system in the US.

Done right, such a plan would move the cost of health insurance off Ford's books, eliminating a cost-disadvantage generally quoted at $1,500 per car. Removing health care cost increases as a point of friction in union negotiations is also likely to make unions less hostile and more accepting of needed organizational flexibility.

Funding the cost of health care for all through government revenues instead of corporations would constitute a large subsidy for companies obligated by union contracts to provide health care.

In my opinion there is a key distinction about the original "use of force" authorization for Iraq that Democrats should be making:

We did not vote to invade Iraq. We voted to give Bush the authority to decide whether to invade Iraq. In essence, we said "OK Mr. President, you have better access to intelligence, you are the commander in chief, you make the call." Our hope was that giving him that authority would force Saddam to cooperate with international inspections, making a war unnecessary.

Our mistake was trusting President Bush to use this authority wisely. For this mistake -- and only this mistake we apologize.

I haven't seen any mention of this elsewhere. In this debate and elsewhere, part of McCain's argument for his health insurance plan is that his proposed $5000 tax rebate would cover all but the fanciest, most gold plated insurance policies. (Not true!)

I noticed last night that his list of what such a fancy plan covers included "transplants." I wish Obama had jumped on this. Every American who knows anyone needing transplant surgery should be outraged at this.

There are too reasons I don't like "liberal" as a description of pro-new deal, mildly redistributionist, humanist and strongly anti-war politics. But I don't like "progressive" much better.

First ,we Americans (of all political stripes) insist on using "Liberal" to mean almost exactly the OPPOSITE of what it means in the rest of the world: radically pro-market, pro- unregulated trade, supportive of authoritarian regimes if they open themselves to international investment, and indifferent to how those regimes treat their own people.

Second, all of us who came of age in opposition to the Vietnam War are aware that it was started and waged by liberal democratic presidents. Our anger at that, because we expected more from liberals, exacerbated our distrust of America. For some this laid the ground for naive, unquestioning and even harmful support of all of America's enemies. The majority of the anti-war movement never went that far, but for all of us "liberal" was tarnished.

I somewhat agree with Lind that the problem with "progressive" is its acceptance of the Enlightenment idea that history has a direction. (Its the same idea that makes even the most scientific of biologists talk as if Evolution is a conscious agent trying to produce higher, or even just fitter, species.)

This notion of progress underlies both the conservatives worship of economic progressive as well as are view of an increasingly democratic and just society. "History is on our side" may have once been rhetorically powerful, but it fails as an explanation of reality.

So what I think we are is Social Democrats. We want a market economy as an engine of the economy, but not an unregulated one. As a European leader of a Social Democratic party once put it: "Yes to a market economy; no to a market society." Social Democracy is about the government actively promoting fair wages, strong unions, social freedoms, international harmony - along with world-wide trade - but only with strong protection for worker's human rights, indigenous peoples' rights and environmental restoration.

What's wrong with that?

Quoting Reich's summation of a recent poll:

"Public approval of Obama’s handling of the economy has slipped to 46 percent in an Oct. 30-Nov. 1 CNN poll, from 59 percent in March. Remember, Obama was elected in part because the public didn't have confidence in McCain's ability to manage the economy."

Unfortunately pollsters never seem to follow up approve/disapprove by asking the disapprovers if they think he is being too conservative or too progressive.

Lots of people, including myself and (presumably) Robert Reich, disapprove of Obama's handling of the economy because we want him to take a more adversarial, more partisan stand against the financial sector establishment. But our disapproval is counted among the 46% and used to draw an implication that Obama is being too radical. Wish it were so.