I know some people don't trust Hillary because she is always so prepared, pundits call her stiff and practiced. I always feel like we are seeing two different people. I like it that she is prepared. I don't have a problem that she is always the smartest person in the room ,I'm sure she has been since first grade, I find comfort in that. Others critize her for being overly ambitious..please. Who has ever become president without ambition? Now more than ever we need a smart, competent, person who will draw other smart, competent people to public service to try and help put things back together again. She is more centrist than the left likes and more business friendly. I think of her as a transition character who will be centrist therefore more able to reach compromises that might get government working again. Eight years of Hillary getting things fixed and then eight more years of a more progressive president might turn this country into a better place to live and gain back some of our lost respect in the World.

Thanks, Joan for taking Maureen Dowd to task for that dumb article. I used to enjoy Dowd but her meaness is overtaking her cleverness and she is becoming predictable.

As a student of alcholism and its impact upon several loved ones I have read and learned about it for years. It has occurred to me that our last two presidents have been impacted by it and in turn so has their decision making. Bill Clinton grew up in an alcholic family and exhibits many of the traits known as codependency: i.e. wanting to be liked by everyone, developing a secret life of compulsion,self destructive risk taking, overachieving, wanting to fix the world. Bush on the other hand was an active alcholic himself and stopped suddenly through a religious conversion. AA has a term for people who don't do the hard work of recovery which involves a lot of self examination it is called a "dry drunk" these people tend to be absolute thinkers, adhere ridgidly to schedules,they are stubborn,easy to anger,unwilling to hear critism of themselves and to become religious zealots and or health and exercise zealots. I have often wondered if much of the growth of the Evangelical movement has not been fuled by dry drunks looking for black and white answers to life's struggles, it becomes another kind of addiction.

I love the line, " Coulter is the face of 21st century Conservatism", I'm wondering if true Christians out there want to be associated with the likes of her. Does this "moral majority" who care so much for the unborn and worry so much about the cultural influncences in the media, want to hold on to power so much that they will go along with the Queen of Hate? Do they approve of her skimpy attire ( with all the books she sells you would think she could afford a new dress). Where are the good decent Christians in ths debate? The contrast between Coulter and Elizabeth Edwards could not have been more stark, one has brains, class, humanity, courage and the other has what? I think the Reagan Democrats may be rethinking things, yes they have a couple of major differences with the Democratic platform but are they willing to sell their own souls in their efforts to save the souls of the unborn? One mean thing...I think that young man with the ,"marry me Ann", sign might get a big surprise if his wish where to come true...it's about the size of that adams apple, always kinda made wonder?

We on the left need to be ever vigilent that we are not allowing the vile framing of the right to influence our thinking, it is so ubiqutious and repetition can led to some of it becoming conventional wisdom. As an example, the whole discussion of the Edwards tragic loss of their son and the reason they talk about it has been reframed so much by the right that it appears at times to be cheap politics. I believe that the truth is that the loss of their son was a pivitol turing point in both of their lives, it crushed them and made them reexamine all they thought they knew and wanted out of life. Somehow out of their pain they deceided the way to honor their son was to really matter as people. The time, effort and sacrifice required to run for president is,in some strong way,in his memory.When people of means, brains, talent and connections decide to use it all to put forward some progressive ideas to help solve some of our countries problems, they should be praised as an American ideal. I'm still not sure who I will be voting for in the primary, I tend to be pretty pragmatic but I know this,Elizabeth Edwards is my hero!

Thank God for Keith Olbermann and David Schuster!

Glen your pieces should be required reading for all of the MSM. Thanks so much for taking on that snakey Tucker, please stick with him for awhile. You do such a great job of taking him apart. He is the poster boy for the cynicism of the Networks and the junkfood they try to feed the American public.