Is the person who comes here to praise Paglia paid to come here? All the letter writers licking all over Ms. Paglia, they all sound exactly alike. They all have the same construction, to wit, and I'm paraphrasing: "I'm a conservative and don't agree with everything you say...." then..."but you're one smart, intellectual, smarty pants, high toned, high falutin' gosh darn Einstein FOR A LIBERAL!..." then..."the Democrats are all a bunch of out of touch communist pansies".....then they all finish with, "I'm gonna read you again!" Every single letter reads the same way. In fact, they read exactly like Paglia's column. Is Paglia writing her own fan mail?

So if it is only the conservatives who lack critical thinking skills why does it drive many progressives wild with hatred when anyone dares to contradict their ideals?

You don't even understand the meaning of the words nor are you capable of distinguishing between genuine progressives and the Democratic Party. She has not attacked progressive "ideals." Maybe you meant "ideas". She attacks Democrats. She pretends to be one because you morons on the right are so gullible and so stupid you can't see past the rhetoric and cheap shallow Paglian contrarianism. She's jealous of Rush. She's a narcissistic blowhard, just like Rush and she's pissed because she can't get on the radio. Can't you see that? She'll say whatever loud mouth stupid thing gets the likes of you and your ilk all wet. Attacking the Democratic Party, which Democratic Progressives do all the time, is not the sole domain of Camille Paglia. You guys keep calling her a liberal. Obviously you have no idea what a liberal is.

What do you think would happen if he used the world's biggest bully pulpit to bring us true campaign finance reform and bar lobbyists from our capitol.

He would be assassinated.

We have been played, by the biggest marketing campaign in history and a man who appealed the part of us that wants to be better. The sooner everyone accepts that, the sooner we can get to work on changing things in 2010 and 2012.

Maybe you can, and good luck with that. I mean it. Good luck. But I'm tired. I've been working on changing things since I was old enough to vote, beginning in 1972. I'm tired. I'm tired of meetings and canvassing and passing out handbills and making phone calls and writing letters and signing petitions and marching and protesting and sending emails. Not much has changed. Oh, we've moved forward on some social issues, sort of. We elected an African-American as President, and that is some progress. But it is still possible to stand in the well of the Senate, as it is in many other public forums in this country, and spout the most twisted, disgusting lies and propaganda about people's sexual orientation and hardly anyone bats an eye. It is still possible to be fired from a job or thrown out of your house in half of the states because of who you love. We're still destroying our environment, in fact we've sped it up. The military-industrial complex is as strong and entrenched as ever, in fact it's been supersized. We're responsible for and engaged in two wars, both of which have shades of Vietnam, particularly Afghanistan, which is almost exactly like Vietnam. We learn nothing. The lobbyists are writing our laws now, not just buying Congress, but literally writing our laws as this article hinted at but didn't go far enough in describing. Still, at this very minute, here in the richest country in the history of the human race, millions upon millions of its citizens live in fear of getting sick. Not just fear of whatever malady afflicts them, but the equal fear of how much it's going to cost to survive it, if possible. The choices they are forced to make are immoral and unconscionable. And too often, that is the ones who can afford insurance. The banks have yet again triumphed over the people. The few grow richer every hour, looting the treasury of the People, stealing their labor and their property as thousands are turned into the streets. And the oppressed, the exploited? Few of them would skip a beat to in turn oppress and exploit if given the chance. The degree to which we have turned every human need and every human wish into a commodity to be bought and sold, including god, even our DNA, is unmatched in the history of the world. All our much vaunted democratic and free republic ideals are blackened and destroyed in our lust for coin.

I'm tired. After this President, who I supported, goes completely down the rat hole of American money and politics, and the cycle repeats itself, I'm finished. I will, after all these years, turn my back on it, I mean to walk away from it and look for something else (maybe in some other country) in which to find hope and meaning. But good luck.