I'll preface my comments by acknowledging that it couldn't be more anecdotal, so take this as you will.

My mother, who I would describe as

--a Dallas Republican who likely has never voted for a Democrat in an open election. Ever.

--somewhat racist, though a better description would be "racially insensitive." Barbara Bush is one of her heroes. 'Nuff said.

--a Christian regular church-goer, though not necessarily "evangelical"

--about as informed as the someone of the above description could possibly be (has watched the Sunday morning news shows more regularly than going to church for as long as I can remember, and I'm 43)

All that being said, she recently had positive things to say about Barack Obama. He would definitely rank as her current favorite Democrat, whether he's running for president or not. I can't imagine for the life of me that she'd ever vote for him. But what her comments suggested to me are this: She doesn't find him threatening. It means that Obama has a better chance than Hillary to turn the tide of divisiveness. I think my mother's comments and opinion matter in the sense that I think she's a rather typical Republican.

Another thing I'll say about Obama as far as his '08 chances go: Given his current tactics, how will the right choose to swift boat him? There's the black issue, but any obvious effort there will backfire. There's his name issue: referring to him as "Hussein." I think that will backfire as well, hard as that is to believe.

Lastly, I think Obama will have a chance with me, personally, as soon as I get over him voting in favor of Condi Rice's Sec of State confirmation. To this liberal Democrat, that one hurt!

Whenever one of Bush's lackeys--or even Bush/Cheney themselves--speak about Iraq, I can't help but think of the sword fight scene in The Holy Grail where the knight keeps claiming dominance while limb after limb is chopped off. These guys are honestly THAT far gone. The only difference is that it's not Bush who's losing his limbs, nor is it the least bit funny.

Either team could have avoided this controversy by winning all their games. It's as simple as that. There was no controversy last year, was there? Florida should consider themselves quite lucky today. And Michigan got what they should have--a second-tier bowl game. I'm familiar with all the arguments why each of them should be playing OSU, and they're all good points. But none of those points is as strong as this: they lost. And I say that even though I would prefer to see a Michigan rematch against OSU rather than Florida.

I have one of the 01/20/09 bumper stickers on my car. Everytime I look at it, I think, "Is it really gonna be THAT long? Christ that's a long way off."

But only briefly. It seemed like such a great idea to leave back in '94, and I've missed it ever since. I have no idea how I could've stayed there much longer, but that doesn't stop me from kicking myself for leaving. Thanks for the great article to bring back the memories! I particularly love the Kerouac quote about the "end of the continent." I always had this unsettling feeling that I was living on the edge of the world there.

I don't recall it being a big mystery to anyone why SF is such an expensive place to live. I think "I moved to San Francisco from [the midwest, the east coast, etc.] and now it's so expensive!" is more a complaint than a question.

"As for Obama, someone refresh my memory: other than giving a great speech or two, what, exactly has he done? "

I think our political discourse has sunk to the point where people are excited about Obama primarily for what he HASN'T done. No sex or bribery scandals, he hasn't shown a propensity for putting his foot in his mouth in a cringe-worthy manner, etc. Basically, he hasn't had time to screw up that much. All I have against him is that he voted to confirm Condi Rice as Secretary of State.

He's already more qualified than Bush--I don't think too many people would argue with that. And frankly, is he really any less qualified than Bill Clinton was in '92? Clinton had been the Governor of a very small southern state. How hard could that job have been? Obama was tutored by Paul Simon, and has experience in the Illinois State legislature--that's got to be fairly equal to Clinton's experience--plus he'll have four years in the U.S. Senate under his belt. That's something Bill Clinton still doesn't have. Shoot, you could argue at this point that Hillary is more qualified to be President than Bill was in '92. The real question is who is the most capable, of course. And who's most electable.

I lost count of the number of times the report uses the word "could" as a qualifier for things that are either a) already the case, or b) ultimately inevitable. This report could have been written two years ago.