Wilentz so badly wanted Clinton to win that he has entered the realm of fantasy. No doubt he has convinced himself that his arguments are logical and non-partisan. So sad when someone, otherwise intelligent, embarrasses themselves this way.

My subscription to Salon is soon to come up for renewal. That this example of a D+ Sophomore Rhetoric paper made it into Salon makes me wonder....

I'm so sick of the "woe is me" victimization crap. The only alternative is I'm one of the three people in the country who doesn't care about whether the candidate is a female, black, green, clammy, or alien. But I am not. Victimization (like Joan Walsh) has passed into history. Get over it all you baby boomers. The next generation doesn't see it any more. So 1990. So done.

Thank you for pushing the issue of media complicity in the Bush and corporate propaganda machine.

Watching David Gregory disingenuously claim that he and his fellow reporters did a "great job" questioning the Bush Administration's run into war- I've decided he is a liar. I will no longer watch this empty headed pretty face.

I was naive. I never believed the idea that "corporate media" was that biased. Now I have seen the light. Wow. Our Republic is surely lost when the 4th estate is just an arm of the Presidency and the entrenched corporate interests. We are doomed.

How predictable to see the rigid idealists in the Democratic Party / Progressives slicing and dicing their candidate because the candidate does not conform tho their particular view on their particular issue.

Sure, you can be as pious and critical as you want. Good luck with that. You will get something worse than Obama, but you can hold your heads high that you never compromised, never backed down. I'm sure it makes you feel good.

As smart as some of you are (Joan), you fail to see the big picture. The country has not spun fully around and headed in your direction. It takes 20 years to steer an observably new direction in the ship of state. If you want change, then realize that the change you ultimately want will not be fully embraced by the first candidate who represents the initial political "sea change". The country simply has not yet made enough of a fundamental political shift.

But this is lost on the true believers. They will slash and cut away at their "imperfect' candidate in an angry tantrum every time they perceive their candidate as deviating from the rigid ideal. Then they will spend the next 4 years excusing their actions and blaming the candidate for losing because the candidate did not adhere to every orthodoxy of the true believers.

The real reason Obama will lose this year is tradition: The Democrats love their circular firing squads.

I have a friend who, like me, is a big civil libertarian. He loves the Constitution and believes in the most expansive interpretations of Liberty therein. He hates the "daddy" government of the Republicans - the repressive methods excused by the claims of pervasive danger (growing police powers, surveillance everywhere, defacto "travel papers", "unitary Executive"...). He sees McCain as a dangerous continuation of these policies.

However, my friend will not vote for Obama over McCain. Why? Because he has a "cause" Obama does not fully support. If a politician is not 100% in support of his cause he will not vote for them. 99% is not enough.

My friend will vote against self-interest and against many of his own beliefs because McCain is 100% on his side and Obama is only 80% on his side on one issue.

This is what I see in those I hear say, "Obama did not go all the way on the FISA issue, so I will not vote for him." It reminds me of all of the working class people without health care and scraping by on two jobs who have been voting Republican (against their self-interest) because Republicans are more "pro-life" than Democrats. It is just self-defeating.

Anyone who thinks Obama will not steer the country away from the totalitarian/Unitary Executive path is blinded by the same self-defeating orthodoxy as my friend. I just hope to God that there aren't many of you. I don't want another 4 or 8 years of purposeful destruction of our country and its foundations from the Executive Branch, or another 30 years of Constitution shredding from the Supreme Court after McCain gets to replace 2 or three justices.

The problem with the new "right" is that they think they already own this country. So stealing an election is not really stealing. It is just ensuring that they retain their rightful ownership. This is amplified by their belief that they are the "true Americans" and the "patriots", while the rest of us are just the dirt classes who never should have been allowed to vote in the first place.

The world is handing the tyrannical Chinese government a 2-week propaganda gift. Nothing but smiley faces and sugar will be seen. Meanwhile the Chinese dictatorship kills it's people, allows no real freedom, and holds tens of millions of its citizens in virtual slave labor. Want to bet NBC will be allowing NONE of this into its coverage? Of course not.

This "Olympics" is similar to 1932 in Berlin. The only difference is that Nazi fascism is replaced with Communist fascism. The world better wake up to the threat and stop allowing Chinese propaganda to dominate.

This is why I hate the Democratic Party (despite voting Democratic 98% of the time). There are so many lunatics who have no contact with reality. Rachel Maddow coined a great phrase tonight: "post reality". As in "these pumas thinking is post reality". I get so sick of these fanatics that, despite my abhorrence to everything McCain stands for I find myself hoping that the Democrats self destruct. Let the pumas find their own health care, jobs, peace, and abortion services in some back alley- they deserve it. Too bad the rest of us don't.