I prefer your way, RobJ, no doubt about that. But, like I said, I keep voting for principled losers.

I know many working class whites. I live in Ohio. FISA doesn't make it onto the radar screens of almost everyone I know, including educated suburban folks. I also know (and am related to) many conservatives who are DYING for the specific ammunition that FISA would have given them had he voted no. Like I said, I hate it. I thought maybe Obama could have found a third way on some of these issues and am demoralized that he seems not to have.

On the polling numbers, of course I don't have evidence. I was just giving my thoughts.

When I say "moving to the center," I mean what many people mean, which is voting with the right on some issues, remaining on the left for most.

It's an interesting point, the semantics of "center" and "moderate" and "independent." When some people say they are moderate, they mean just that: they're in the center on the issues themselves. On abortion, for example, a moderate might argue that the woman has all the rights until, say, the 16th week, when s/he gets a little queasy about the procedure (knowing whatever is happening physiologically in the little creature--fingernails, in utero hiccups, whatever) and thinks now the rights are with the fetus. This compared with the person on the right who thinks all rights go to the fetus from Day One after conception, and the person on the left who thinks all rights go to the woman until birth.

Someone else might say they are moderate or in the center but really mean that they feel very strongly right on some issues and very strongly left on others. Those people are really independents, in my opinion, but they often call themselves moderates.

Anyway, the purpose of my previous post was to express genuine surprise that Joan, who has made her contempt for voting third party crystal clear, seemed to be considering just that.

This issue really riles people up, in particular in his own party

What about those working class whites that everybody was so concerned about a month ago--are they riled up about FISA? I don't think so. In fact, I don't think most people outside of the intellectual leftie blogosphere know much at all about the details of FISA.

But a commercial suggesting Barack Obama wants terrorists to be able to make calls freely in the US because he's afraid not to coddle them? Now that will play well in the swaths of Appalachia that Hillary Clinton so readily played up as her territory. As much as I hate it, I think Obama's probably demonstrating his keen political acumen here.

In his less-than-complimentary piece a few weeks ago, David Brooks sums this point up nicely:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/opinion/20brooks.html

Every time I wonder whether I can ultimately vote for Obama in November, given all of his political cave-ins, McCain does something new to make sure I have to.

Who else would you vote for? I mean, has your vote really been in question?

To me, it's clear that Obama is doing what politicians do: moving to the center to get elected. I'm an idealist who always hates that instinct in politicians. But Kucinich types never get close to being elected, so what do I know?

Anyway, I'm not unsympathetic to your disappointment, I'm merely surprised that you would consider voting for anyone else, given your admitted contempt for those of us who voted for Nader in 2000.

Why are you writing about them? Why, Sarah, did you like them to begin with?

Having the advantage of never having heard of them before, I can look at this with fresh eyes. They are not smart women. It's possible that their drinking obscured their intelligence, but I don't think so.

I looked at the "glam shots" that you linked--your first introduction to them. Why did you ever go back? What does it say about you or salon that this website, these women are ANYTHING that you take seriously?

Please don't misunderstand: I'm not a prude railing against the drink, the sex, or the candor. I'm talking about the pure, unadulterated immaturity.

My unsettled feeling has nothing whatsoever to do with these mindless, flash-in-the-pan, selfish, thoughtless women. I don't think they represent anyone but themselves. My discomfort has everything to do with the fact that what I thought of as an intelligent news magazine is covering them like they matter.

about Schieffer's "Really?"

I haven't seen much of the fuss about this although I heard enough to know that it would balloon out of proportion. But why is Schieffer inserting his editorial opinion in an interview like that?

The man's a conservative. Here's what he says about Vietnam in his memoir THIS JUST IN: "I had gone to Vietnam with two preconceived notions: First, I thought Lyndon Johnson was right. We had to draw the line somewhere. Like so many in my part of the country, I didn't have much use for peaceniks and the antiwar movement, and like so many of my generation, it was inconceivable to me that America could ever lose a war." (p.62)

His shameful, disingenuous justification for his part in the media's Lewinsky circus goes from p.357-363--all about how they HAD to cover it or someone else would, but WE GOT IT FIRST, and it was so embarrassing to say all those sexy words on live TV without even reading any of it first, but I handled it well, coming up with my own phrases for the graphic words ("Where I came up with the term 'sex of a kind'--for oral sex--remains a mystery to me. I can't remember ever having said it before. It just popped out..."). He made the whole thing about himself and the media and their "responsibility" to the people. What bullshit. What an ass.