"Have I done stupid [things]? I have. You know you meet someone. You dance with them. You go to a place where you probably shouldn't have gone," Sanford said.

You mean, like the Olive Garden? Good grief guy, buck up. There are just too many weird ways to interpret the things that keep flowing from his public orifice. The letters, the soul mates, the hiking, the others.......Put a lid on it, please.

What's a spiritual advisor doing chaperoning a date with the inamorata? That's just icky.

You're probably right. Sanford is being very human, and that in itself is less than expected in public life - refreshing, as far as it goes. I do feel that he's doing himself no favors by waxing about further details and threads that no one is really pulling on. If you're standing in a hole, stop digging.

His past moral-er-than-thou take on Clinton's conduct is the real rub. There ought to be split-screens, at least.

Whenever someone mentions at a dinner party that fish may be gone from our tables by 2050, there are mostly blank faces. Like, what on earth are you talking about? Pre-stunned as it were. It's such a gut-level subject, especially in seafood-rich climes and cuisines, that it's hard to know what to do, where to turn, right off the bat.

Thanks for articles like these - it's really what I look to Salon to provide. The political stuff is entertaining, in it's own useless sort of way, but this is essential to know.

No murders. It's not human if you commit murders for the fun of it, just if you admit it. Contrition is human, but especially if you ramble while you're admitting it. Rambling is extra points. Hang dog look is good too.

If it's a choice between solid jellyfish (how did I miss THAT opportunity!) and fish farming, I'm gonna have to go with the farming.

Good idea.

We don't have to work up a sweat to get excited about ANY GW legislation. We can just cruise mentally through the last 8 years of big honking Bush lies and zero action. This is a good step, a strong first step - compromised of course, but useful. It puts us on the playing field. Remember a few years back when Al Gore was going around door to door to explain what GW was? And the fight was the Republican majority's to lose?

Well now it's ours to win.

I agree with the NYT op-ed last week: if anyone can get a decent GW bill through Congress it's Henry Waxman, and if Joseph Romm says it's ok, that's 2 reasons to be positive.

by that token, MJ was being beaten by his father under Nixon. What does it all mean?

When the South seceded I think it was generally considered a fairly Anti-American thing to do, at least by the remaining states. Connotes rather than denotes, that sort of thing.

It's quite amazing that Limbo brings up lunacy - Al Franken is probably the one legislator we have now who is most like the Fox Jock Party Elders. He's media-trained and savvy, glibly outspoken and can make a facetious, outlandish argument when he wants to.

Except Franken knows he's doing it. And he's funny even when he tells the truth.

Sorry, missed your reply.

The implication in all of this is that Palin is clueless that a great deal of the country would indeed regard a political platform of secession as far out and, yes, anti-American. She doesn't get it. You can parse it any way you want, but here it is:

1. Todd is a member of the AIP for 7 years.

2. AIP's front web page (see for yourself) says its goal (not "one of its goals" - it's primary goal) is the right to secede

3. Palin wants to deny the implications of that

4. Steve Schmidt does the math - denying is not a possibility

Palin is oblivious. Hence the dying-turkey interview. Oblivious.

Total Rogue

I love this job (but I'm quitting it).

I love Alaska (but we're moving).

They keep dissing Trig (when I keep bringing him up).

It's not politics as usual (but a totally new kind of politics).

I'm passing the ball for the team (and walking off the court).

The decision's been a long time coming (but especially this week).

Trust me (I'm making this up as I go along).

Dear Sarah - this does not you a candidate make.

I'm quitting (so I can suspend my campaign at a later date).

......"According to Think Progress, the spectacularly wrong Palin supporter Bill Kristol phoned into Fox News to say: 'If I had to guess, we just saw the opening statement of the 2012 campaign.' "

Todd Bless America!

There just something really wrong with the idea that our next president can make her case to the American people by NOT governing. By NOT dealing with complex issues for the benefit of her constituents. By NOT standing up for her job over what she sees to be distractions. By NOT having -

grit.

absolutely right, that's the most mind-boggling part - that the speechwriters try to preemptively redefine staying in your job as "quitting" -

"Life is too short to compromise time and resources... it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: "Sit down and shut up", but that's the worthless, easy path; that's a quitter's way out. And a problem in our country today is apathy. It would be apathetic to just hunker down and "go with the flow."

Pure Newspeak.