asks: "I wonder what those residents of Lake Woebegon are thinking about our President?"

They like him a lot better than the one he replaced. Look which way Minnesota voted...

"we want the President to fail because have concluded that his plans will absolutely change both the idea of America and America herself in a very negative way."

What would YOU have him do differently?

Consider that for the 28 years from 1981 until 2009, we had 20 years of "conservative" administrations. And they left us and Mr. Obama with a horrible mess to clean up. More people voted for him than any other presidential candidate in the history of the republic because they desperately wanted CHANGE from the way things were being done - or not done.

GK described "conservativism" this way:

"Save for a rainy day.

Don't foul the nest.

Don't burn your bridges.

Don't sacrifice the future for short-term profit."

I don't see those who call themselves "conservatives" for the past 28 years doing ANY of those things.

Instead of saving for a rainy day, they cut taxes, increase spending and allow the deficit to explode worse than any "liberal" would dream of doing.

They ignore the other points in similar ways. Most of all, they've repeatedly sacrificed the future for short-term gain. Then the mess is much more difficult to clean up.

"The chaos you speak of will be the result of the Dems spending massive amounts of money on things they always wanted to spend it on but now are calling stimulus and health care and you name it."

And what would YOU do?

Allow the financial institutions to continue to fail? Allow the infrastructure to erode even more? Let more and more people go without even minimal health insurance, while Big Pharma and the private insurers rake in more and more profits?

"It is ironic that you continue to trash in your columns at Salon the thoughts, beliefs and ideals of the folks who are the living representations of those residents of Lake Woebegon that made you such a rich American."

What "thoughts, beliefs and ideals" do you mean, exactly?

Do you think the people of Lake Wobegon would approve of how the 'conservatives' have run the country for 20 of the past 28 years? Would they approve of the deficits and military buildup of the Reagan years? Iran-contra? "read my lips - no new taxes"? "mission accomplished"?

Just what IS a conservative today, anyway?

But there's a little more to it.

Those who lived through the Great Patriotic War weren't about to protest the massive resources allocated to Security of all kinds. Not after what they'd been through, and the millions who didn't survive.

In rough numbers, the USSR lost more than 10% of its population in the war. Probably more like 15%. No war in US history comes anywhere close.

In the seige of Leningrad alone more Soviet civilians died than the USA lost in the entire war, from all causes, in all theatres.

Few Americans have any idea of how much of a beating the USSR took during the war, and yet managed to hold on and eventually win. Nor how much the experience influenced them for decades to come.

As I understand it, the WW2 deficit was funded by issuing lots of war bonds. These were bought by Americans of all socioeconomic levels. They were essentially an investment in the future, and funded a lot of folks upward mobility after the war.

Today's deficit is again being funded by issuing lots of bonds, but they're not all being bought by Americans.

During WW2, almost any American not in the military (or an internment camp) who could work could get a job "for the duration"; in many cases the defense plants would train people for specialized and nontraditional Rosie-the-Riveter jobs. But all sorts of things were rationed or simply not available. So Americans had money but few places to spend it.

Today the situation is somewhat different...

Still, it looks like we may actually spend our way out of a recession.

How about that!

The difference is, Howard has been up-front about it since the beginning, and makes no bones about the idea that ratings = money = continued air time = more money.

What would be news is for Sarah Palin (remember her?) to admit that she's in it for the money.

In the 1970s many millions of middle-class Americans faced a triple-whammy economic situation:

1) Their wages were growing slower than prices.

2) The few savings options available to them paid relatively low interest.

3) The tax laws punished savers by taxing the interest, and rewarded borrowers by allowing ALL consumer interest to be deductible. (In low-interest times this isn't a big deal, but when home mortgages are topping 15% and other loans are even more, it's a considerable factor.

Also, as wages rose, people found themselves paying higher tax rates even though the tax laws hadn't changed.

The result was that the number of hours one had to work to buy something was increasing, and the best hedge against it was to buy now and pay later (with inflated dollars and deductible interest) rather than to save up.

A similar state of affairs was a factor in the RE boom/bust of recent times. People saw home prices rising faster than their ability to pay, even with cheap'n'easy mortgages. The house they could barely afford today would be out of the question next year - or next month. Worse, many tax deductions have been removed, limited, or subject to high minimums, so the tax benefits of home ownership were many people's big hope of reducing their income taxes. So people borrowed as more than they should have to get into a house.